Safeguarding

Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is defined as: protecting children from maltreatment; preventing impairment of children’s 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.

Our Safeguarding Lead is Ms Steadman: k.steadman@bishopveseys.bham.sch.uk

This page details the following sections:

Safeguarding
Child Protection
Links to information on specific mental health issues
Links to information on specific safeguarding issues

Safeguarding

Bishop Vesey’s is wholly committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all its pupils.

What we do to safeguard pupils at Bishop Vesey’s Grammar School:

Pastoral Support:

Students are assigned a form tutor who they see on a daily basis.
Strong pastoral system to support students including Heads of Year, Deputy Heads, Designated Safeguarding Lead and Learning Mentors.
An established ethos of students talking to staff about their problems or if they are worried about their friends.
Students know who they can talk to.
Students have access to Toot Toot where they can email concerns directly to the Designated Safeguarding Lead
We employ a fully qualified therapist for students to talk to a day and a half a week.
Key staff are trained as Mental Health First Aiders. The Designated Safeguarding Lead is also trained in applied suicide intervention skills and an ambassador for Think U Know run by CEOP.
Referrals are made to outside agencies if support or intervention is required.
We employ a mentor to work with specific students.

Clear expectations and action to maintain a safe environment:

Policies including, E-safety policy and Acceptable use policy, Anti-Bullying policy and Safeguarding Policy including information on radicalisation, FGM and peer on peer abuse.
Behaviour policy including rewards and graduated sanctions
Close monitoring of attendance with telephone calls home if not notified by parent of reason for absence
Safer recruitment practice is followed with security checks on all staff employed by the school
All staff receive regular safeguarding training.
There are eight members of staff who are Designated Safeguarding trained.

Educating Pupils:

Citizenship lessons include a range of safeguarding issues such as mental health, equality, healthy relationships, digital literacy, radicalisation and knife crime.
Assemblies during the year feature mental health, equality and promotion of tolerance.
Information in student planners signposting students to organisations for help and there are posters around the school.

Safety and Security On Site:

Visitors have to sign in at reception to gain access to school buildings.
Visitors are given a lanyard to wear.
Visitors are accompanied around the by the school staff member they are visiting.
Filtered internet access
Monitoring and checking anything accessed on school computer/ICT facilities and following up on any concerns
Lock down and fire evacuation procedures are in place and practised throughout the school year
Risk assessments carried out for offsite activities
A range of staff trained as First Aiders. First Aid equipment, including a defibrillator, is kept in the Main School Office
Staff wear identification badges.

Child Protection

Child Protection is when a child is at risk of or is suffering from abuse.

The most recent Keeping Children Safe in Education defines abuse “as a form of maltreatment of a child. Somebody may abuse or neglect a child by inflicting harm or failing to act to prevent harm. They may be abused by an adult or adults or a child or children.”

Bishop Vesey’s recognises that any student may be at risk of harm or abuse; there are no social, geographical, cultural or faith boundaries.

There are four categories of abuse.

Neglect
Emotional abuse
Physical abuse
Sexual abuse

More information about these categories can be found in the Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy on the Statutory Information and Policies page.

Staff undertake child protection training at least once per year and read keeping Children Safe in Education 2023 Part 1. Those staff trained as Designated Safeguarding Lead or are Designated Safeguarding Deputies have attended a two-day course and then attend a half day refresher every two years. Further appropriate training in child protection and safeguarding matters is undertaken by these specialist staff. Staff who are new to the school are also trained in child protection and safeguarding matters as part of their Induction process.

Staff are also advised on how to accept a disclosure from pupils and how to record concerns through the school’s electronic reporting system. Staff cannot promise confidentiality to children.

If a student makes a disclosure of a concerning incident or incidents, or if staff become otherwise aware of issues which could ultimately lead to a student being at risk of significant harm, the school has a duty of care to pass this onto the appropriate authorities; not to do so is against the law.

The school does not make judgments about such incidents and is not authorised to investigate to validate or otherwise the disclosure. In taking action, the school must put the child’s welfare first. Referrals are made to the Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) of the local authority in which the child lives. Parents/carers will be informed by the school when such a referral is being made unless it is judged that this would place the child at greater risk of harm.