Our commitment to Safeguarding

Thursby School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare and well-being of its pupils, engages with young people and staff in Policy and practice developments, proactively encourages feedback and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

.Safeguarding at Thursby School is first and foremost at the centre of our school and our local community. We pay due diligence to ensuring all pupils are safe and secure within our school. We work with families to maintain strong positive links and develop every aspect of a child's life. 

Staff are very vigilant and have professional curiosity towards keeping children safe.  All staff refresh their level 1 training each September. There is then ongoing regular safeguarding reminders, staff meetings or internal training throughout the year. 

We, at Thursby School, offer your child a safe, happy, nurturing environment, where children's wellbeing and safety are at the forefront. 

Please take time to view our Child Protection Policy and our parent leaflet within this section of the website. 

Our Safeguarding Team

Thursby Primary School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. 

Our Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL):

Mrs Jayne Williams (Headteacher)

The role encompasses leading everything that is safeguarding from Child Protection to school site safety of pupils; from recruitment to developing staff knowledge. 

Qualifications:  Child Protection Level 2 (June 2023 refreshed) and Level 3 (27.06.23 refreshed) Safehaven

Safer Recruitment - Kym Allan-  23.06.2021 and NSPCC 2020

Level 1- refreshed  01.09.23

Prevent- Train the Trainer  completed 2019

Prevent- Channel Awareness refreshed 29.06.2021

NGA Governor Safeguarding module-May 2021 

SCR training refreshed 30.01.2022

NSPCC- Online Safety  20.04.22 

Early Help- 05.09.22 

GDPR- June 2023 

Online Safety-Filtering and monitoring-September 2022 & June 2023 

Online Safety-Whole school approaches & curriculum- 26.09.22 & June 2023 

SEND- Level 7 Masters Degree in SEND with Distinction. (focused modules: Autism, Social, Emotion, Mental Health and action research on SEMH interventions)  Please refer to our Special Needs section and our SEND policy for further training completed by staff.

* Ongoing online module training  through CSCP and The National College 

Our Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead (DDSL)

Mr Dave Colombi (Assistant Headteacher)

The role is to support the DSL and act in the absence of the DSL for safeguarding. This includes but is not limited to: Early Help, Operation Encompass, pupil safety, site security.

Qualifications: Level 2 and Level 3 -Safehaven- January 2024 

Level 1 Safeguarding-refreshed 01.09.23 

Prevent- Channel Awareness 2019

SCR-The National College-February 2022

Early Help- 05.09.22 

DFE funded qualification- Senior Mental Health Lead- 2022/23

Ongoing Online Modules through Cumbria CSCP

Mrs Milburn, our Key Stage 1 teacher also holds Level 2 and 3 qualifications from 2023 and can act in the absence of DSL/DDSL, who, if off-site remain available. Mrs Brown, our Key Stage 2 teacher also holds Level 2 and 3 qualifications from the summer term 2024 onwards. 

Our Designated Governor for Safeguarding:

Mrs Liz Craig

*The role is to support, monitor and challenge DSL/DDSL  to ensure the effectiveness of safeguarding remains very robust and ensure systems and procedures in school are in place and followed consistently.

Qualifications: 

Annual Level 1 training refreshed- annually 

Ongoing online modules training  through CSCP 

Level 2 Safeguarding in Education  05.09.2020

SCR- The National College 30.01.2022

NGA Governor Safeguarding module 11.10.2021

Our designated Child Looked After Teacher 

Mrs Jayne Williams (Headteacher)

The role of Designated Teacher is to lead and follow the procedures for pupils who are in the Local Authority's care. 

Our designated Mental Health leader 

Mrs Jayne Williams 

The role is to lead and support wellbeing and mental health within school and Mrs Brown is the staff wellbeing co-ordinator. 

Online Safety Co-Ordinator 

Miss Emma Sisson (Year 5 class teacher)

supported by Jayne Williams as DSL

Site Security-Safeguarding Outdoors 

Thursby school has CCTV for the outside school areas. Please view our signage and our policy. 

Thursby School has written risk assessments for safety on our school grounds. Our fencing, gates, car park, EYFS gate area, school's shelter and decking areas have control measures in place to keep children safe. These can be viewed by contacting school for a copy. Our site manager Alison Bell does a morning sweep of the grounds every day before children arrive to check for any rubbish or dangerous items that can be found after community use during evenings and weekends. We tape off any areas if they require additional measures for a temporary period of time.  All outdoor equipment has a visual check and logs are kept of these checks with any defects acted on immediately. 

All staff on duty outdoors wear a hi-Viz jacket to be easily identifiable to children and also to minimise the risk of unknown adults attending site during school time. 

We ask that parents awaiting to drop their children off in the morning and collect after school do not allow any child/toddler to play around the staff car park or in the bushes directly outside the hall entrance/exit for safety of everyone. Any cars that are damaged due to parents allowing children to play in out of bound areas may be charged for the damage. 

We expect all families/staff and visitors to ensure they close every gate behind them in line with our clear signage. 

New fences and gates were erected from 2020 to divide the school field and car park, the car park to the yard and a padlock is in place during the school day on the Jubilee field gate. In 2022  a new perimeter fence was erected to replace the old fence. 

Family Action – FamilyLine. A service available for all Cumbrian families 

Family Action are commissioned by Cumbria County Council to provide 0-19 Child and Family Support Services in four of Cumbria’s six districts – but there are services that are available to all families in Cumbria. 

One of those services is FamilyLine.  FamilyLine is a free support service available via telephone, text, email and web chat.   

Family Action recognises that family pressures can sometimes be difficult to manage without emotional support and guidance to help. Many people feel confused by what information is available or struggle to access services close to home. 

FamilyLine uses a network of volunteers from across the country to support family members over the age of 18 through telephone calls, email, web chat and text message. 

The service aims to: 

• provide both immediate and long-term support 

• help with practical information and guidance 

• provide emotional and listening support 

• help with understanding and accessing relevant services and information 

• provide regular one-to-one befriending support to service users feeling isolated 

• access to short term telephone counselling 

• a referral into our many projects across England and Wales, where relevant. 

Family Line is for family members aged 18 years old and over from anywhere in England, Wales and the Isle of Man. 

Opening times: 

• Monday to Friday, 9am to 9pm 

Contact details: 

• Telephone: 0808 802 6666 

• Text message: 07537 404 282 

• Email: familyline@family-action.org.uk 

If a family need support outside of those hours, they can leave a message and they will receive a call back in operational hours. If it is a crisis, then there is a crisis line to a trained professional 24/7 that can be access by texting FAMILYACTION to 85258.  This service is delivered in partnership with Shout. 

Full information can be found at https://www.family-action.org.uk/what-we-do/children-families/familyline/ 

 https://www.barnardos.org.uk/   is recommended for parents/carers to access for support from Barnados. 

Barnados offer mental health services across the UK to help children, young people, and families when they need them most.  Depending on your location, this may include:

• cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)
• support for children and young people diagnosed with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder)
• support for young people who identify as LGBT+
• one-to-one and group counselling
• play and art therapy
• support for young people who have experienced trauma and abuse and their families
• school-based programmes that teach young people about mental and emotional well-being.  

https://www.operationencompass.org/school-participation

Operation Encompass 

Thursby School participates in Operation Encompass. This means that any Domestic Abuse incidents that occur at home and are logged with the police, school will be informed of within 24 hours.  This information will be given to the school's safeguarding team only (DSL- Jayne Williams or DDSL- Dave Colombi in DSL's absence).  The information allows school to keep their duty of care to the child in school at a level they may need after a domestic abuse encounter. For example: child may be tired, not eaten well, not dressed correctly in school uniform etc due to the home incident. 

DISCLOSURE and BARRING SERVICE (DBS)

Any individual who has, or is likely to have unsupervised access to children will require an Enhanced Disclosure For regulated Activity.

Further details on this are available on our 'Vacancies' section on our website or by contacting the school on 01228 711180 or by email to admin@thursby.cumbria.sch.uk or can be found on the DBS website

Members of staff will have this check paid for by Thursby School.  A suitable check must have been carried out and the certificate seen before a member of staff can start working in school.

Students may have their DBS arranged by their education provider and if it is, this must be in place before they begin their placement in our school. A copy of the document must be seen in school before the start date and the education provider must sign a document to state that they will inform Thursby School of any ‘Additional Information’ that they receive regarding a student.  Thursby School has the right to withdraw the offer of a placement in the event of receiving applicable adverse information.

Volunteers may need a DBS check arranged for by Thursby School. There is no cost for the actual check as this is free for volunteers, but the company that we use to undertake this check charges an administration fee. The cost of this must be met by the volunteer. Volunteers cannot start volunteering until the check has been successfully completed and the certificate received.

Other relevant documentation for parents/carers can be found online through the Department Of Education website (DFE)

Every Local Authority has an independent local safeguarding children partnership. Cumbria has a dedicated Children's 'Cumbria Safeguarding Children's  Partnership' (Cumbria CSCP ) website. The Parents and carers can access this site to gain information regarding information of their arrangements, their vision and values alongside the numerous documents and information it holds to support families. https://cumbriasafeguardingchildren.co.uk/ 

Please check out our 'Parents' section on this website for 'Useful Links' to other relevant documentation.

FILTERING AND MONITORING-ONLINE SAFETY 

In Keeping Children Safe in Education 2023 there is a section regarding how schools keep children safe online through their filtering & monitoring procedures. 

All staff receive training on understanding their roles and responsibilities for this. Filtering & monitoring is recorded within our Child Protection policy and we have appropriate systems on our school devices and network, this includes fulfilling the cyber security standards. 

Thursby School's internet traffic is filtered through the additional IP address supplied by LUNS (Lancaster University Network Services) which scans the traffic and removes access to unsuitable sites. This stops the majority of searches for inappropriate media and also stops access to media sites such as Facebook, What's App. At Thursby we do not allow pupils to access unfiltered machines. The proxy setting remains 'ON' at all times. 

The Safeguarding team checks systems regularly and records what has been checked. Staff should always do a pre-search of a site before letting pupils access it. 

At Thursby we undertake an annual audit (at least) once a year, as good practice. We use the SWGFL to do this online. It compares our school to the national average of standards. Currently, we are at 1.9/4.0 which overall is above national for keeping children safe online. Our Safeguarding governor works with the Safeguarding team to review and monitor Online Safety and the audit strengths and next steps for the school to ensure we are always strategically planning and actioning essential procedures for our school. 

At Thursby School the Governing Body has overall strategic responsibility for filtering and monitoring. The

Senior Leadership Team have responsibility for:

* Procuring filtering and monitoring systems

* documenting decisions on what is blocked or allowed and why 

*Reviewing the effectiveness of provision 

* overseeing reports 

They also ensure staff know their roles eg that they understand their role, are appropriately trained, follow policies, processes and procedures and act on reports and concerns. 

Our IT provider has technical responsibility for:

* Maintaining filtering and monitoring systems

* Providing filtering and monitoring reports 

* Completing actions following concerns and checks to systems

Online Safety Newsletters 2023-2024