Ellington Primary School is committed to the highest standards in protecting and safeguarding the children entrusted to our care.
Our school will support all children by:
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Promoting a caring, safe and positive environment within the school
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Encouraging self-esteem and self-assertiveness
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Effectively tackling bullying and harassment
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Promoting all aspects of the Equality Act 2010
We have an expectation that all staff and visitors to our school will behave in a way which ensures our children are safeguarded at all times. This expectation involves a duty for any safeguarding concerns to be reported.
Safeguarding means so much more than being ‘compliant’ with published expectations. At Ellington, we put the children’s happiness and their interests at the heart of all we do. Our safeguarding culture is underpinned through our school values and school rules. Our children come from a wide variety of backgrounds, experiences and starting points. We seek to create a ‘level playing field’ for them to develop personal skills in a safe, secure and nurturing environment.
We carefully check that all staff and volunteers are safe to work with our children. All necessary checks are made including DBS checks, references, ID and employment history. We keep a single central record of all this information and this is regularly monitored. Visitors and volunteers are rigorously checked in much the same way staff are before they can have any unsupervised access to our children. Any contractors on site have to read a safety briefing before being signed into the building. All adults in school wear an ID badge with a Ellington lanyard for quick identification.
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Everyone working with our children, their parents and carers should be aware
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Their role is to listen and note carefully any observations which could indicate abuse.
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They should not attempt to investigate once the initial concern is raised.
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They should involve the Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) immediately.
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Disclosures of abuse or harm from children may be made at any time.
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If there are any concerns about a member of staff, this must be shared with the Head Teacher.
Child Protection
As a school, we follow our safeguarding and child protection policy in order to follow our statutory duties. All staff must report any concerns they have about a child and not see these as insignificant. Staff will not assume a colleague or another professional will take action and share the concern. On occasions, a referral to Children’s Services is justified by a single incident such as an injury or disclosure of abuse. More often however, concerns accumulate over a period of time and are evidenced by building up a picture over time; this is particularly true in cases of emotional abuse and neglect. In these circumstances, staff record and pass on concerns in accordance with this policy to allow the Designated Safeguarding Lead to build up a picture and access support for the child at the earliest opportunity.
All concerns, discussions and decisions made, and the reasons for those decisions will be recorded in writing on the school’s CPOMS system ( this is an online system to monitor safeguarding, well-being and pastoral issues.)
Early Help
Early help is organised early intervention to provide support as soon as a problem emerges at any point in a child’s life. If early help is appropriate, our DSLs will generally lead on liaising with other agencies including Early Help staff and setting up an inter-agency assessment, as appropriate.
Staff may be required to support other agencies and professionals in an early help assessment and, in some cases, where education is the fundamental factor, act as the lead practitioner. Early help assessments will be kept under review and referred to Children’s Social Care for assessment if the child’s situation does not appear to be improving or is getting worse.
Online Safety
We actively promote and monitor online safety. All pupils, staff and visitors to school must read and sign our Acceptable Use Policy before any access to our systems is allowed. All usage is monitored by specialist software (Senso) and this is backed up by a robust firewall and web filtering. Pupils are taught how to stay safe online and this is regularly reinforced in computing lessons and what to do or who they can talk to if they are worried.
Safer Recruitment
Ellington Primary is committed to the principles of safer recruitment and, as part of that, adopts recruitment procedures that help deter, reject and/or identify people who might abuse children. Safe recruitment processes are followed and all staff recruited to the school will be subject to appropriate identity, qualification and health checks. Our Safer Recruitment Policy can be found here.
Curriculum
At Ellington, we have a calm, secure and encouraging environment where children feel safe and their holistic development is enhanced through the delivery of our whole school curriculum, including our PSHE/RSE curriculum, school values, work with external agencies, and other communities. We have identified opportunities across all curriculum subjects to directly teach the children about keeping safe/and safeguarding. Please see the curriculum section for further information.
Health and Safety
We work hard to ensure that our site is as safe as possible. Staff closely supervise the children in all areas of the school and they are visible and available to talk to at all times. The grounds are checked by the caretaker every day and the building is maintained to the highest standards. External experts come regularly to ensure everything is fully functioning and safe – fire safety, water, electrics, etc.
The premises are accessible to pupils, parents and staff with disabilities.
We carry out regular fire alarm and evacuation tests and all of this is recorded in our Fire Log. An annual Fire Audit and risk assessments reviews are carried out regularly.
Our catering facilities meet the highest standards of hygiene and they are checked regularly by Environmental Health. We also meet the nutritional standards in place nationally and we are proactive and knowledgeable about the food of all pupils with allergies.
Mr Kevin Hodgson
Headteacher
Designated Safeguarding Lead
Miss Louise Gray
Assistant Headteacher
Designated Safeguarding Lead
Mr Dan McConville
Assistant Headteacher
Designated Safeguarding Lead
Mrs Amy Milne
EYFS Lead
Designated Safeguarding Lead