Safeguarding is taken very seriously at St Michael’s Federation and it is paramount to everything we do. Safeguarding is the actions we take to ensure the safety of the pupils and adults in our care.

In our federation we define safeguarding as:

• protecting children from maltreatment;
• preventing impairment of children’s mental and physical health or development;
• ensuring that children grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care;
• and taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes.

Child protection is one part of the safeguarding process. It is the steps that we take to protect children who are identified as at risk of serious harm. This may be from one event or a series of events over time.

At St Michael’s Federation, we follow the following safeguarding principles.

• Accountability – all staff have regular training on safeguarding and we are accountable for safeguarding in all that we do.
• Empowerment – supporting individuals to make their own decisions.
• Partnership – we work with a range of agencies to ensure the protection of the pupils and adults in our care.
• Prevention – it is vital that we try to protect individuals prior to them suffering serious harm.
• Proportionality – we act in proportion to the risk of individuals.
• Protection – it is our responsibility to protect everyone in our care from harm and it is vitally important to support and protect those who are most at risk.

Everyone involved in our schools has a responsibility to ensure the safety of our pupils and associated adults. Therefore, when visiting or working at our schools we will ask you to:

• Turn off your mobile phone and leave it at reception or outside in your car. Staff will have their phones with their personal belongings away from where they work with children.
• Please do not take photos, sound recordings or videos of children without the permission of the school.
• If you do not have a DBS clearance, you will not be permitted to work without supervision of a member of staff. Anyone working in the school, including contractors, who requires work unsupervised will be asked to show a DBS certificate and identification.
• If you are working with individual children, please make sure the class teacher knows where you are working and how long you are working for.
• If you are working alone with individual children, we ask you to do this in rooms with windows or with a door open. Nobody should be in a closed room with an individual child.
• When supporting children with toileting, staff will use designated areas and ensure the door is propped open in a way to ensure privacy of the individual but also transparency of our working practises.
• Make sure you pass on any safeguarding concerns, no matter how small or insignificant, to a member of the school staff
• If you have a concern about a child, please speak with one of our designated safeguarding leads as soon as possible – Victoria Reynolds (Executive Head), Laura Thomas (Assistant Headteacher at Onny), Fiona Clayton (Assistant Headteacher at Lydbury North), Jo Hunt (Federation Business Manager).
• If you have a concern about adult who works within the federation, please speak with Mrs Reynolds in the first instance or if the concern is about them contact the chair of governors or the LADO at Shropshire Council.

• Finally, if a child discloses a concern to you, make sure you make notes using the child’s words as soon as possible after the event, do not investigate the situation yourself or question the children and please do not promise confidentiality. Make sure the disclosure is passed on to one of the designated leads or failing that a member of the school staff who will then pass on the information.

For further information regarding our safeguarding policies, please see the following policies (Child Protection, Keeping Children Safe In Education) in the policies section.

GDPR

Our federation aims to ensure that all personal data collected about staff, pupils, parents, governors, visitors and other individuals is collected, stored and processed in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the expected provisions of the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018) as set out in the Data Protection Bill.

The DHMat has a responsibility to ensure the school is compliant with data protection legislation. We have a designated data protection officer who can be contacted via the following email dpo@dhmat.org.uk

For further information please see our privacy notice in the policies section and also refer to the DHMat’s trust wide Data Protection Policy which can be accessed here.