At Tree Tops Primary Academy, our pupils’ safety and wellbeing at school, at home and online is our priority. We uphold high standards of safeguarding for our students, staff and community. We are committed to our legal and moral duty to promote the well-being of children, protecting them from harm and child abuse, and we expect al staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
We ensure every measure is taken to safeguard all of our pupils and we have a very experienced team in place to support our most vulnerable students and young people who are at risk.
- Designated Safeguarding Lead: Denise White
- Deputy Safeguarding Lead and Online Safety Coordinator: Stefan Bishop
- Deputy Safeguarding Lead: Tanya Shaw
- Safeguarding Lead Governor: Theresa Davies
- The Single Central Record Manager: Lian Adamek
- Academy Director and LAT Safeguarding Lead: Emma Elwin
- LAT Safeguarding Advisor: Marla England
At any time, if you’re worried a child is in immediate danger you can call the police on 999 or the NSPCC hotline on 0808 800 5000.
What does Safeguarding look like at Tree Tops Primary Academy?
- All staff receive safeguarding training on induction as well as ongoing updates and personal development, including online Safety and Prevent.
- Keeping Children Safe in Education – Part 1
- Allegations and concerns are reported proactively and taken seriously by all. Appropriate action is taken by the safeguarding team including rationale.
- We track and review the needs of our most vulnerable students regularly and involve outside agencies where required, beneficial or appropriate.
- We work with the Local Authority, Police and Support Services to ensure our pupils and families receive the support they need.
- We complete and review risk assessments to ensure that all potential dangers in activities have been identified.
- We teach our pupils how to identify dangers and keep themselves safe (including online) during class lessons and assemblies.
- We understand that mental health and special education needs can have unique safeguarding requirements and regularly review these.
- Our pupils and staff are well trained to evacuate the building safely in case of fire or other emergencies.
- We have an experienced Safeguarding Team and training is updated once every two years for all DSLs and the Office Manager.
- Our safeguarding governor works closely with the school to ensure safeguarding practices are robust and upheld.
- All staff are DBS checked and can be identified easily via their ID badges.
- Our pupils have easy access to support from our safeguarding team.
Safeguarding in the Curriculum
At Tree Tops Primary Academy, we aim to provide a curriculum that ensures every pupil, regardless of need or background, acquires the knowledge and skills to successfully transition to their secondary setting as a well-informed, globally aware young person. This includes ensuring that all our pupils know how to keep themselves, and others, safe at all times in order to be successful.
We teach our pupils how to keep themselves safe throughout the school day through our curriculum offer. Some examples include:
- Responding in the moment to an online safety concern that has been raised, such as children saying they are using apps which are above their age rating.
- Teaching children how to use a knife and fork safely at lunch time so that they do not hurt themselves and so they can cut food up into safe sizes.
- Preparing pupils for school trips and how to use trains, coaches, walking safely by busy roads, how to interact safely with strangers and what to do if you get lost.
- Planning routes and understanding maps in geography, as well as learning their own addresses, so they can get themselves home or tell a safe adult where they live.
- Visits from safe people in our community, such as police officers and firemen to understand how these people keep us safe.
- Building the confidence and resilience to ‘give new things a go’, such as tackling a difficult question in maths, and developing the skills to cope when they get things wrong.
- At home time, following safe procedures for releasing children to whoever is collecting them and reinforcing why we do this.
We know that our safeguarding culture has the impact we want it to have as our children trust our team with information that is worrying them. Our children can name, and do talk to, trusted adults across the school. Our children can talk about how they will keep themselves safe and make reasoned, principled decisions when choosing how to act. This ensures that our pupils successfully transition to their secondary settings as well-informed, globally aware young people and are also prepared for their future careers.
Online Safety
At Tree Tops Primary Academy we understand that today’s children and young people are growing up in a digital world. It is a wonderful learning tool that has many benefits in supporting pupils learn and become more knowledgeable. As they grow older, it is crucial that they learn to balance the benefits offered by technology with a critical awareness of their own and other’s online behaviour, and develop effective strategies for staying safe and making a positive contribution online.
National Online Safety
We have received a National Online Safety Certified School Accreditation for our whole school community approach to protecting children in the online world. This is a reflection on the emphasis that we as a learning community place on staying safe online.
National Online Safety is a digital training provider with extensive resources in online safety. Its educational resources support UK schools in educating the whole school community in online safety– including all school staff, senior leaders, teachers and parents – on how to make the internet a safer place for children.
Childnet
Childnet International is a non-profit organisation working in partnership with others around the world to help make the internet a great and safe place for children. The Childnet website hosts detailed online resources for young people, parents, carers and teachers. Parents have access to a vast range of resources including: gaming, apps, video chat and webcams, online grooming, keeping under fives safe online and many, many more.
Social Networking
Tree Tops Primary Academy recommends that pupils avoid using all social networking sites and tools until they are of an appropriate age to do so. If parents / families allow the use of such sites then they are strongly advised to use nicknames and avatars when using social networking sites, blogs, Wikis, instant messengers etc. Avatars and nicknames help give pupil’s a ‘hidden’ identity on the internet rather than encouraging them to upload photographs of themselves.
ChildLine
ChildLine is a private and confidential service for children and young people up to the age of nineteen. You can contact a ChildLine counsellor about anything. Call free on 0800 1111, have a 1-2-1 chat online or send an email.