St Michael’s Church of England High School fully recognises its responsibilities for safeguarding and promoting student welfare.
Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is defined 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“ (Working Together to Safeguard Children, HM Government 2018).
Our policy applies to all staff, governors and volunteers working in the school. St Michael’s Church of England High School believes that students have a right to learn in a supportive, caring and safe environment, which includes the right to protection from all types of abuse. In particular, teaching and pastoral staff are vigilant for signs of any student in distress and are confident about applying the processes to avert and alleviate any such problems.
The school recognises that, because staff are in regular and frequent contact with children, they are particularly well placed to safeguard and promote the welfare of students and are therefore trained accordingly.
If you have any questions or queries regarding any aspect of safeguarding, please do not hesitate to get in touch with our Designated Safeguarding Lead, Mrs Sarah Beardsmore, or Deputy Safeguarding Lead, Mrs Mills, 0121 561 6881.
Safeguarding incidents are regularly updated on the school website. Please click the button below to access the page.
Speak Out Safely is a campaign in school where you can feel safe to report any worries or concerns about yourself or another student who may be being bullied.
With the Speak Out Safely campaign, there are a variety of safe ways that you can report your worries and concerns:
The Speak Out Safely Report Cards are available in the Library and Reception areas. These can be posted in the white post boxes around the school. They are collected at the end of each day, and incidents will be dealt with by the appropriate member of staff as soon as possible.
White post boxes can be found all around the school at:
- Reception
- Dining Hall Stairs
- Humanities Hub
- English/MFL Hub
- Math/Science Hub
- DT Hub
- Performing Arts Hub
- Library
E-Safety Information for Parents
The Internet is a wonderful and diverse place, filled with incredible information resources. Yet for many parents and carers, who often have less knowledge and experience of the Internet, it can be a place of concern. We worry about what or whom our children may encounter online, and how we can protect them with our own limited knowledge.
While we use it for booking holidays and answering emails, your children are setting up social networking pages, instant messaging with webcams, blogging, researching school projects, listening to music, playing online games and emailing friends.
Most children use the internet safely and responsibly and we should not, therefore, lose sight of the positive aspects. As parents, we need to balance our concerns about their safety online with empowering them to explore and make the most of this wonderfully rich resource, safe in the knowledge that they can talk to us about anything they may run into.
In clear, simple language, this section of the website explains to parents what children already know or need to know about the online environment as well as providing advice about how you can protect your family, allowing them to use the Internet safely and securely while having as much fun as possible.
Useful Links:
https://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/
http://parentinfo.org/
http://www.childnet.com/parents-and-carers
http://www.netsafeutah.org/teens/teen-videos.html
The school is involved in Operation Encompass, which directly connects the police with schools to secure better outcomes for children who are subject or witness to police-attended incidents of domestic abuse.
