At Mount Pleasant Primary School we are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. We make every effort to ensure that consistent, effective safeguarding procedures are in place to support families, children and staff at school. Our Safeguarding and Child Protesction Policy can be found here.
All members of staff have completed the relevant Child Protection Training and the school has a comprehensive policy so that we can provide staff, volunteers and governors with the framework they need in order to keep children safe and secure in our school and to inform parents and guardians how we will safeguard their children whilst they are in our care. Keeping Children Safe in Education was updated in September 2022 – a copy of this document can be found here.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the safeguarding and well-being of children at our school these should be brought to the attention of one of the Designated Safeguarding Leads: Mrs Benge, Mrs Smith, Mrs Sutcliffe or Mrs Houghton.
You can also report your concerns online to the Initial Contact Team on 0345 678 9021 or to the NSPCC. More information on how to report concerns to the NSPCC can be found here.
PREVENT DUTY
As part of our school’s ongoing safeguarding and child protection duties we fully support the government's Prevent Strategy. From 1 July 2015, all schools have been 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.
More information can be on the Prevent Duty can be found here.
If you are concerned about extremism in school or if you think a child might be at risk of extremism, you can contact the counter terrorism helpline on 020 7340 7264.
Our school has been given the opportunity to take part in a national project, which is being run locally in partnership with Shropshire Council and West Mercia Police.
Operation Encompass is a process whereby the police and the council will inform a member of staff if a child or young person has experienced any domestic abuse incident. This will be done prior to the start of the next school day. Information sharing between professional agencies allows school staff to provide emotional and practical support to their pupils experiencing domestic abuse.
Domestic abuse can broadly be defined as ‘any incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive or threatening behaviour; violence or abuse between those aged 16 or over who have been intimate partners or family members. This can include, but is not limited to, the following types of abuse – psychological, physical, sexual, financial and emotional.’
Operation Encompass ensures that a member of the school staff, usually the Designated Safeguarding Lead, is given special training, to enable them to liaise with the police and council in receiving and using the information that has been shared, in confidence. This training will take place soon.
The sharing of details under Operation Encompass is permitted under Statutory Safeguarding Legislation and in respect of local authority schools under the Crime and Disorder Act (for the prevention of crime) and doing so without the child’s or parent’s consent is permissible under both pieces of legislation and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).