Safeguarding – Everyone’s Responsibility
If you are worried, or have concerns regarding the safety or well-being of a child, please contact one of our safeguarding team on 01977 701493 or contact Social Care Direct on 0345 8503 503.
We have a safeguarding email that is monitored by the DSL team, should you have a concern regarding safeguarding: safeguarding@sjp.bkcat.co.uk
The member of our Academy Council responsible for safeguarding is: Mrs S Jaraman
You can contact Mrs Jarman on admin@sjp.bkcat.co.uk or 01977 701493.
At St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School, Pontefract we are committed to the protection and safeguarding of all of our children.
- Designated Child Protection Officer: Mrs M Velayudhan Tomlin (Headteacher)
- Deputy Designated Child Protection Officer: Mr S Bartram (Deputy Headteacher)
- Designated Child Protection Officer: Mrs J Clements (Learning Mentor)
- Designated Child Protection Officer: Mrs E Everett (Y6 Teacher & Senior Leader)
ESafety
ESafety in School
At St. Joseph’s our pupils are regularly exposed to online safety teaching. This starts with our RSE/PSHE scheme, then our KS1 & Ks2 children are taught eSafety through our chosen scheme: “Education for a Connected World”. Through this teaching, pupils know how to keep themselves safe online and what to do if they see something that they don’t like online or if they don’t feel safe.
We also have Internet Safety days and assemblies.
Filtering and Monitoring
In school we have two electronic safeguards to prevent pupils from stumbling onto inappropriate information and to inform DSLs about any concerns:
- RM Safety Net provides web filtering
- Smoothwall Monitor which monitors and captures user activity as it happens, automatically sending potential risks through to our DSL Team.
Mental Health and Wellbeing
Our Mental Health Leader is: Mr S Bartram (Deputy Headteacher)
Our Mental Health Deputy is: Mrs J Clements (Learning Mentor)
If you are worried or concerned about a child or young person mental health and wellbeing please follow the links below for more information, that can be very helpful.
If you are more worried and concerned then you can ring Social Care Direct on 0345 850 3503 or by contacting your local GP.
Please find useful links below for more information about Mental Health and Well-Being.
The May 2022 Mental Health awareness week focuses on loneliness.
We have on my mind boxes across school to support our children. Our mental health first aider checks them regularly and provides additional support to our children when needed.
Below is a link to our RSHE page on our school website. This will provide you with information regarding our RSHE curriculum.
https://www.sjp.bkcat.co.uk/curriculum/curriculum-areas/rhe/
We offer Catholic care support with Emma Horsefield (Social worker) to children, parents and staff.
Catholic Care is an excellent service. They, wherever possible, work to prevent crises, particularly in the lives of our children. The schools, children and family wellbeing service that we access works to help children and young people to handle issues such as separations and bereavement in a way that does not prevent them from reaching their potential. This service also offers high quality emotional and mental well being support.
If you feel your child would benefit from this please speak to our Learning Mentor, Mrs J Clements.
(Parental permission from both parents would be needed in order for Catholic Care to work to support a child).
https://www.wakefieldfamiliestogether.co.uk
Mindfulness
The MIND website has lots of helpful advice and resources
Parenting and mental health | Mind, the mental health charity – help for mental health problems
Operation Encompass
St Joseph’s supports and advocates ‘Operation Encompass’ Operation Encompass is a unique Police and Education early intervention safeguarding partnership which supports children and young people exposed to domestic abuse. Operation Encompass is the reporting to schools before the start of the next school day, when a child or young person has been involved or exposed to a domestic abuse incident the previous evening. It enables children to arrive at school and have their needs met, by trained Child Protection staff, who have been informed of the child’s ‘experience.’
National Domestic Violence 24hr free-phone
hotline: 0808 2000 247
Wakefield Early Help Hub
As a school we work closely with Wakefield Early Help Hub where needed. Parents and families may sometimes need further support and this service is sometimes a route parents/carers may need to use for support.
Wakefield Early Help Hub want happy, healthy and safe lives for Wakefield children, young people and their families. Wakefield Early Help have high aspirations for Wakefield to be the best place for children and young people to grow up. Most children and young people do well. Most move in and out of difficulties through their lives, and some have important disadvantages that currently are only addressed when they become serious.
Sometimes parents know there is a problem but don’t know where or how to get help. Wakefield Early Help want to identify children and young people earlier and help them before things reach crisis point.
The most important way of doing this is for everyone who works with children and young people to pay attention to their progress and well-being and be prepared to help if something is going wrong. Wakefield partners such as the Council, NHS, Police, Fire, Voluntary Community Sector, Schools and others work together with children, parents and families to get the right help at the right time.
The Wakefield partners have produced an Early Help Strategy and way of working together to deliver early and focussed help for children, young people (aged 0 to 19) and their families who have been identified as requiring some support from a specialist service to address their unmet needs.
https://wakefield.mylocaloffer.org/early-help-service/targeted-early-help-service/
Please click below to go to the Wakefield Safeguarding Children website:
If you’re finding things pretty hard right now click this text or visit – https://wf-i-can.co.uk/ where you will find lots of information and contact details for help and support.
Bullying
Bullying is;
the repetitive, intentional hurting of one person or group by another person or group, where the relationship involves an imbalance of power.
NSPCC Pants Talk
Talking pants is a simple parent guide to help children remember how to keep themselves safe. To view more please click on the link below.
Child Criminal Exploitation (CCE)
https://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/what-we-do/our-work/child-criminal-exploitation-and-county-lines
Child Sexual Exploitation
Some of the visible signs of child sexual exploitation can include:
- Regularly missing from home or school and staying out all night
- Change in behaviour – becoming aggressive and disruptive or quiet and withdrawn.
- Unexplained gifts or new possessions such as clothes, jewellery, mobile phones or money that can’t be accounted for.
- Increase in mobile phone use or secretive use
- Appearing to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol
- Being picked up or dropped off in cars by unknown adults
- A significantly older ‘boyfriend’ or ‘friend’ or lots of new friends
- Spending excessive amount of time online and becoming increasingly secretive about time spent online
- Sudden involvement in criminal behaviour or increased offending
- Sexual health problems
If you have any concerns that a child you know may be a victim of Child Sexual Exploitation report it to the Police by calling 101 or you can call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111. In an emergency always dial 999.
Copy of CSE Social Media Library
Private Fostering
Are you aware of a child who is living with someone who is not their close relative? If so, this could be a private fostering arrangement.
A private fostering arrangement is made independently between the parent or person with parental responsibility and the private foster carers (without local council involvement).These arrangements include young people under the age of 16 (or 18 if they have a disability) who are living with someone who is not considered to be a close relative.
The arrangement must continue for a minimum of 28 days for it to be considered as a private fostering arrangement. When a child under the age of 16 (under 18 if disabled) is cared for 28 days or more by someone who is not their parent or a close relative this is called a private fostering arrangement. Close relatives are defined as step parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, uncles or aunts (whether of full blood, half blood or by marriage). Great aunts, great uncles or parents’ cousins are not classed as close relatives.
Wakefield Council has a legal duty to ensure that any child or young person is protected, safe, well looked after and does not come to any harm in a private fostering arrangement.
The law requires you to notify Wakefield Council within 6 weeks of:
Your child going to stay with someone who is not a close relative for 28 days or more, or
You going to look after someone else’s child for 28 days or more. If a child or a young person is already staying with someone who is not a close relative you must notify us immediately on 0345 8503 503.
To notify Children’s Services about a child who is going to stay with someone who is not a close relative, please ring the Integrated Front.
Online Safety
Many of our pupils will use mobile phones, tablets and computers on a daily basis. They are a source of fun, entertainment, communication and education. However, we know that some adults and young people will use these technologies to harm children. The harm might range from sending hurtful or abusive communications, to enticing children to engage in sexually harmful conversations, webcam photography, encouraging radicalisation or face-to-face meetings. The school’s online safety policy Trust eSafety Policy 2021 explains how we aim to keep pupils safe in school which includes reasonable filters and monitoring.
The DSL team are responsible for online safety. Cyberbullying and sharing nudes and semi nudes by pupils, via texts and emails, will be treated as seriously as any other type of bullying and in the absence of a child protection concern will be managed through our anti-bullying and confiscation procedures.
Chatrooms and some social networking sites are the more obvious sources of inappropriate and harmful behaviour and pupils are not allowed to access these sites in school. Some pupils will undoubtedly be ‘chatting’ outside school and are informed of the risks of this through PSHE/RSHE. Parents are encouraged to consider measures to keep their children safe when using social media we advise parents by sending online safety newsletters to prents/carers every month . We also provide additional updates and support through our weekly parent/carers newsletter.
E-Safety certificate January 2023
Talking to your child is one of the best ways to keep them safe. You can also use parental controls on social networks, online games and browsers and on both hardware and software that can filter or monitor what your child can see.
Preventing your children from using the internet or mobile phones won’t keep them safe in the long run, so it’s important to have conversations that help your child understand how to stay safe and what to do if they ever feel scared or uncomfortable.
Here are a few tips on how to keep them safe
1. Have the conversation early and often
2. Explore online together
3. Know who your child is talking to online
4. Set rules and agree boundaries
5. Make sure that content is age-appropriate
6. Use parental controls to filter, restrict, monitor or report content
7. Check they know how to use privacy settings and reporting tools
Useful links about Online Safety
https://reportharmfulcontent.com/?lang=en
Related helpful resources…
CEOP Home Activity Packs –
https://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/parents/support-tools/home-activity-worksheets/
E Safety tips 6 – 10 years old
Parental Guide Nintendo Switch
Domestic Abuse
Domestic Abuse is any incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive, threatening behaviour, violence or abuse between those aged 16 or over who are, or have been, intimate partners or family members regardless of gender or sexuality. The abuse can include, but is not limited to:
- psychological
- physical
- sexual
- financial
- emotional
It can happen in any relationship, and even after the relationship has ended. Both men and women can be abused or abusers. There does not need to be violence for it to be an abusive relationship.
Domestic abuse can seriously harm children and young people. Witnessing domestic abuse is child abuse, and teenagers can suffer domestic abuse in their relationships.
For further information regarding Domestic Abuse, see links at the bottom of this page.
You can also visit Wakefield District Domestic Abuse Service website, please find their link and leaflet at the bottom of this page.
Useful information around Domestic Abuse
- https://www.wakefield.gov.uk/our-people-and-communities/protecting-our-communities/domestic-abuse/wakefield-district-domestic-abuse-service/
- NSPCC
- Guide to Free Domestic Violence Helplines
Wakefield’s Young People Safeguarding Charter.
St Joseph’s School supports and follows ‘The Children and Young People’s Safeguarding Charter’, an agreement which we are committed to putting into practice and applying its principles.
The Charter was officially launched by Wakefield & District Safeguarding Board, in May 2016, in conjunction with more than 200 young people across the authority, who gave their views and ideas.
Young people have stressed that they want to be listened to, kept safe, taken seriously and be treated with care and respect.
The Charter also sets out a series of pledges that apply to all staff working with young people, including making a personal commitment to be professional, to be trained, to know what to do and to show respect and understanding.
https://www.wakefieldscp.org.uk/resource-download/wscp-young-peoples-safeguarding-charter-poster
The government has now launched the Educate Against Hate webpage http://educateagainsthate.com/
NSPCC
Keeping children safe
http://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/keeping-children-safe/
The NSPCC Website ‘Share Aware’ provides straight forward, no-nonsense advice that will untangle the web, and show
parents how they can be just as great a parent online as offline. It includes a guide to social networking sites, a parents’ guide and tips about how to talk to your child about staying safe online.
http://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/keeping-children-safe/share-aware/
Know the Signs Campaign
The next phase of the Know the Signs campaign was launched on 18 December. This phase aims to advise parents or carers who are buying gadgets such as tablets, mobile phones, games consoles, etc for young people to set the privacy settings on the apps that they will be using before they give the gifts.
The guides for parents are on the West Yorkshire Police website – www.westyorkshire.police.uk/cse/onlineguides
The guides have been written in a very simple way, so that regardless of technical ability, you should be able to follow the instructions.
ParentInfo and Text Lingo!
Do you know your ALAP from your ASL? If not you may find the new service for schools and parents called ParentInfo a real help. Explaining text messaging acronyms is just one of the services provided by this web site, it covers a wide range of issues including mental health, sex and relationship’s and online activity including gaming and cyberbullying
Please click here for useful Safeguarding Websites for Parents
Useful Safeguarding Documents for Parents