What is Safeguarding?

Safeguarding is the action that is taken to promote the welfare of children and protect them from harm.

Safeguarding means:

• Protecting children from abuse and maltreatment
• Preventing harm to children’s physical and mental health or development
• Ensuring children grow up with the provision of safe and effective care
• Taking action to enable all children and young people to have the best outcomes.

Child protection is part of the safeguarding process. It focuses on protecting individual children identified as suffering or likely to suffer significant harm. This includes child protection procedures which detail how to respond to concerns about a child.
(NSPCC, 2017)

St. Michael’s Nursery and Infant School ensures children learn in a safe, caring and enriching environment. Children are taught how to keep themselves safe, on and off line, to develop positive and healthy relationships and how to avoid situations where they might be at risk including by being exploited. We are a ‘KidSafe’ registered school and use the programme to teach our pupils how to safeguard themselves.

All staff in school are trained in Safeguarding through Safe Haven Consulting Ltd, who offer high quality safeguarding training and tailored services. This training is refreshed annually. In September 2024, all staff received Safeguarding Awareness update training; training certificates are available on this page in the ‘Safeguarding Training’ tab.

St. Michaels Nursery and Infant School has a statutory responsibility to share any concerns it might have about a child in need of protection with other agencies and in particular police, health and children’s services. Our record keeping is meticulous and we use the CPOM online programme to document all Safeguarding concerns.

Staff in our School are not able to investigate concerns but have a legal duty to refer them. In most instances, the school will be able to inform the parents/carer of its need to make a referral. However, sometimes the school is advised by Children’s Social Care or police that the parent/carer cannot be informed whilst they investigate the matter.

We understand the anxiety parents/carers understandably feel when they are not told about any concerns from the outset. The school follows legislation that aims to act in the best interests of the child.

Our Safeguarding Team

If you have any concerns about the safety or wellbeing of the children of St. Michael’s Nursery and Infant School then please immediately inform Mrs. Regan (DSL; Designated Safeguarding Lead – trained in Level 3 Safeguarding) or, in her absence, Mrs. Hudson (DDSL; Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead; also trained in Level 3 Safeguarding).

There is always a DSL or DDSL on site during school hours and during the holidays, the DSL is contactable each day via email and via telephone through the Local Authority. Safeguarding is EVERYONES’ responsibility.

Our Safe People

Safeguarding Policies and Procedures

We have a range of policies and procedures in place to protect our children, staff and their families.

Operation Encompass

In conjunction with Cumbria Police, St. Michael’s Nursery and Infant School is involved in an initiative called Operation Encompass. The purpose of Operation Encompass is to safeguard and support children and young people who have been involved in, heard or witnessed a domestic abuse incident. Following such an incident, children will often arrive at school distressed, upset, worried and unprepared. Operation Encompass aims to ensure that appropriate school staff (DSL/DDSL) are made aware early enough to support children and young people in a way that means they feel safe and included.

Prevent Duty

As part of St. Michael’s Nursery and Infant School’s ongoing safeguarding and child protection duties we are fully behind the government’s Prevent Strategy.

From 1 July 2015 all schools are subject to a duty under section 26 of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, in the exercise of their functions, to have “due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism”. This duty is known as the Prevent Duty for Schools.

At St. Michael’s, we build pupils’ resilience to radicalisation by promoting fundamental British values and enabling our pupils to challenge extremist views. Where appropriate we will discuss our response to terrorist incidents, without unduly upsetting our young pupils.

We focus on the kindness and courage of those helping victims and look to see how our children can be helpful and good citizens in the face of adversity.

The statutory guidance refers to the importance of Prevent awareness training to equip staff to identify children at risk of being drawn into terrorism and to challenge extremist ideas.

All staff complete Prevent training annually.

Safeguarding Leaflet for Families and Visitors 2024-2025