Burrowmoor Primary Academy is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. We will ensure compliance with Keeping Children Safe in Education (DfE, 2023) and expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. We have a number of policies and procedures in place that contribute to our safeguarding commitment, including our Child Protection/Safeguarding Policy which can be viewed below and in the Policies section of our website.

Sometimes we may need to share information and work in partnership with other agencies when there are concerns about a child’s safety and welfare. We will ensure that our concerns about our pupils are discussed with their parents/carers first unless we have reason to believe that such a move would be contrary to the child’s welfare.  If there are concerns on the safety of our children we will make referrals.

We actively support the Government’s Prevent Agenda to counter radicalism and extremism. The Prevent Lead is Mrs Ruth Bailey and Mr James Harfield. 

At Burrowmoor Primary Academy, we take our role in safeguarding very seriously as we believe all children have the right to speak out and be heard, be safe and get help when they need it.

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SAFEGUARDING AND CHILD PROTECTION STATEMENT

Under section 175 of the Education Act 2002 (as amended), *the Education (Independent School Standards) Regulations 2014, the Non-Maintained Special Schools (England) Regulations 2015, and the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 (as amended) to have arrangements in place to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.

We will endeavour to provide a safe and welcoming environment where children are respected and valued.

The school will therefore be alert to signs of abuse and neglect and will follow the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Safeguarding Children Partnership Board’s procedures to ensure that children receive appropriate and effective support and protection.   Parents and carers should know that the law requires all school staff to pass on information which gives rise to a concern about a child’s welfare, including risk from neglect, physical, emotional or sexual abuse and exploitation. Parents/carers should know that records of safeguarding concerns may be kept about their child.  They should be informed that school staff will seek, in general, to discuss any concerns with them including referrals to other agencies.

Local procedures state that “Consent should always be sought from an adult with parental responsibility for the child/young person before passing information about them to Children’s Social Care, unless seeking consent would place the child at risk of significant harm or may lead to the loss of evidence for example destroying evidence of a crime or influencing a child about a disclosure made.”  This includes allowing them to share information without consent, if it is not possible to gain consent, if it cannot be reasonably expected that a professional gains consent, or if to gain consent would place a child at risk.

Where there is a need to share special category personal data, the Data Protection Act 2018 contains ‘safeguarding of children and individuals at risk’ as a processing condition that allows professionals to share information.

In accordance with legislation and local Information Sharing protocols, we will ensure that information is shared securely and sensitively.  Information will only be shared with other services where it is deemed necessary and proportionate to ensure that children and young people are safe and receive the right service. In all circumstances, the safety of the child will be the paramount concern.

Schools will contact Children’s Social Care when they have reasonable cause to suspect a child may be suffering or likely to suffer significant harm. Occasionally, concerns are passed on which are later shown to be unfounded.  Parents/carers will appreciate that the member of staff in the school with responsibility for child protection (known as the Designated Safeguarding Lead or Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead) was carrying out their responsibilities in accordance with the law and acting in the best interests of all children.

Holding power

Under Section 3 (5) of the Children Act 1989, any person who has care of a child “may….do what is reasonable in all the circumstances of the case for the purpose of safeguarding promoting the child’s welfare”.  This means that on rare occasions, a school may need to “hold” a child in school whilst Social Care and the Police investigate any concerns further.

* The word ‘school’ is used throughout but this would include all educational settings e.g. Academies, Pupil Referral Units, Further Education establishments and Independent schools.

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Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL)

James Harfield- Deputy Headteacher and SENCo

Deputy Designated Safeguarding Leads

Ruth Bailey - Headteacher

Claire Tod - Assistant Headteacher

Lianne Smith - Assistant Headteacher

(In the event of none of the above being present - Mrs S Connell, CEO, will be contacted)

Domestic Abuse lead

James Harfield

Online Safety lead

Ruth Bailey

Safeguarding Governor

Susannah Connell

Prevent Lead

Ruth Bailey and James Harfield

Designated Teacher of Children in Care and Previously Looked After

James Harfield

Concerned about a child?

If you are concerned about a child at risk, you can call the MASH on: 

Children’s Services: 01733 864180

Emergency Duty Team (Out of Hours) 01733 234724

Operation Encompass
Our school is part of Operation Encompass. This is a police and education early intervention safeguarding partnership which supports children and young people who experience Domestic Abuse. Operation Encompass means that the police will share information about Domestic Abuse incidents with our school PRIOR to the start of the next school day when they have been called to a domestic incident.

The Operation Encompass information is stored in line with all other confidential safeguarding and child protection information.

Further information about the scheme is included in the poster below and also on the Operation Encompass website. 

Everyone's Invited 

You may have already read or heard about the Everyone's Invited website, it is a movement committed to eradicating rape culture. You can access the website here: https://www.everyonesinvited.uk/

In response to this a new dedicated NSPCC helpline to support potential victims of sexual harassment and abuse in education settings is now live. You can call the helpline on 0800 136 663.

Below is our published Lockdown Procedure and plan.