Safeguarding and Child Protection

Safety and Well-Being

How to stay safe and well is an ever-evolving aspect of our lives and as such we receive useful information on a regular basis from contributors such as the Local Authority Safeguarding Team, NHS and National Online Safety.

Safeguarding

Southway understands its responsibilities towards child protection and safeguarding and gives student safety the highest priority. We are committed to ensuring that students feel safe in their education, and if we suspect that a child has been harmed, or may come to harm, we will take action to safeguard and protect the child.

We have in place a range of policies and procedures to support our safeguarding commitment. These can be located under the “Policies” section of the website.

Part of our role is to educate children and young people on how to keep themselves and others safe. We provide this through our curriculum offer and wider school curriculum offer such as assemblies and targeted workshops. There are links to external sites near the bottom of the page which provide help and advice for parents and carers, as well as students themselves.

Designated Safeguarding Leads

We have a number of child protection trained staff who are available to discuss any concerns or questions you may have. The following named staff are available for staff or students to speak to about a concern:

E Safety

Social networking is hugely popular. Many young people are sophisticated in the way they use social media apps and websites, tailoring their communication for different audiences, and accessing them from a range of devices including smartphones, tablets, and games consoles.

But social media, like all forms of public communication, comes with some risks. Not all of these risks turn into actual problems; and if children never face any risks, they never learn how to deal with them. By helping your child understand what the risks are, you can play a big part in preventing them from turning into problems.

What they might see or do:

• Seeing or sharing of violent, sexual and pornographic content
• Inaccurate or false information and extreme views
• Promotion of harmful behaviours including self-harm, anorexia and suicide
• Over-sharing of personal information
• Actively or unintentionally getting involved in bullying or hurtful behaviour

Who they might meet:

• People who might bully, intimidate, or frighten
• People posing behind fake profiles for: mischief-making, sexual grooming and stalking, blackmail and extortion or identity theft and hacking.

How this could affect them:

• Fear of missing out leading to excessive use or exaggeration
• Getting upset by things they have seen and being uncertain about what to do
• Engaging, or being pressured into engaging in more risky behaviour either by accident or by design
• Developing unrealistic, and perhaps depressing ideals of body image and gender
• Becoming subject to peer pressure or interactions that are intense or too difficult to handle
• Creating an online reputation that may create problems for them in the future

Don’t be put off by believing your child knows more than you: the tools are actually quite easy to manage.

• Ask them to show you which social media apps they use and what they like about them. Talk about how they use them and what makes them so engaging
• Explain how you can use privacy settings to make sure only approved friends can see posts and images
• Check if any of their apps have ‘geo-location’ enabled, sharing their location unintentionally
• Show them how to report offensive comments or block people who upset them
• Check ‘tagging’ settings so that when others are posting or sharing photos online, your child’s identity is not revealed. It is also important to get people’s consent before sharing photos
• Encourage your child to come and talk to you if they see anything that upsets them

Encourage your child to think carefully about the way they, and others behave online, and how they might deal with difficult situations.

• People may not always be who they say they are online: how can this create problems?
• Why is it unwise to meet anyone in the real world that you’ve only ever met online?
• Even if you think your messages are private, remember that words and images can always be captured and broadcast.
• There can be pressure to be part of a particular group online or to be seen to be following a certain set of ideas

If young people are being harassed, threatened, or blackmailed because of a sexual image they can report at CEOP via the CEOP report form at  www.ceop.police.uk/safety-centre

Mental Health and Well-Being

Good mental health is very important for all in the school, both students and staff. While we do not control all the things that shape mental health beyond school, we will always consider the impact of the decisions we make on the wellbeing of staff and students. We all have mental health, like we all have physical health. Both change throughout our lives. And, like our bodies, our minds can become unwell. Mental health problems might actually be more common than we think. One in four of us will be affected by mental illness in any year.

In the curriculum we teach our students about their emotional health through our Resilience curriculum, understanding social and emotional learning, healthy habits and how to foster a growth mindset.

In ensuring excellent behaviour we have a consistent whole school approach with clear routines of behaviour, well communicated social norms and familiar routines bringing a sense of calm. The key emphasis in our approach to behaviour is to allow young people to self-regulate, so they develop the skills of capable adulthood.

In maintaining a significant, experienced and dedicated MAT Team, we can put in place measures to support young people and their families who may be experiencing difficulties. This team of staff have a range of expertise covering areas including bereavement, anxiety, behaviour support, exam pressures and many more. Our MAT Team work closely with all staff, parents and carers to ensure our students are offered the right level of support, at the right time.

If you have any concerns about the mental health of a young person at the school, then please contact a member of the MAT Team. In addition, there some videos and links below to resources that may help provide you with some key reminders, strategies or additional support. 

Expand the box below for links for very useful resources/tools around mental health and well-being:

Road Safety

We endeavour to instil in our students a responsibility to take all aspects of their personal safety seriously, including road safety.  Brake, the road safety charity, states that, ‘Road safety is not just for younger children. As students get older, the risks increase. Students need to walk, cycle and play safely without supervision. They also need to understand how to be safer passengers in vehicles, including on school buses, and then, if they learn, how to be safe motorbike riders and car drivers’.

Students need to study their road safety:

• A – Awareness
• B – Behaviour
• C – Choice

For further information on road safety visit:

www.brake.org.uk

Drugs

Follow this link if you would like to find out more information about the facts on drugs, searchable by the name of the drug, written for younger people: www.drugscope.org.uk

Talk to Frank – If you would like to know more information from the UK Government backed site covering all drug related questions in a no-nonsense frank way, follow this link:

•  If you want to talk, you can call FRANK free, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
  Talk to Frank: 03001236600
•  82111- Need a quick answer? Text a question and FRANK will text you back.
•  https://www.talktofrank.com/

Tips for Keeping Safe

We want students to enjoy their free time but we also want them to stay safe. Following the simple tips below should help students to stay safe and feel more confident. Follow this link for further guidance: Stay-Smart