Safeguarding & Online Safety – St Anne's Catholic Primary School

Our Safeguarding Team

Safeguarding Lead: Mrs G Murphy (Headteacher)
Deputy Safeguarding Lead: Mrs C Keegan (Deputy Headteacher)

Safeguarding Team: Ms J Clegg (Assistant Headteacher)
Safeguarding Team: Paula Williams (Learning Mentor 0-7)
Safeguarding Governor: Mrs Jane McKenna (Vice Chair)

Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO): Catherine Ballans ( Telephone: 07716 702034) & Pauline Trubshaw (Telephone: 07841 727309)

If you have any questions about any aspect of Safeguarding please contact the school office and ask for the key staff named above.

St Anne’s Catholic Primary School ensures children learn in a safe, caring and enriching environment. Children are taught how to keep themselves safe, to develop positive and healthy relationships, how to avoid situations where they might be at risk including exploitation.

All our staff are committed to maintaining a safe environment and promoting the health, safety and wellbeing of all. All staff receive a safeguarding induction when they start working in school and receive regular updates and annual refresher training in safeguarding.

The school has a statutory responsibility to share any concerns it might have about a child in need of protection with other agencies and in particular police, health and children’s services.

As a Safeguarding school we work closely with other agencies including the Community Police, School Health, local Authority Health and Safety Advisors, Children’s Advice and Support Service (CASS) and the Early Years Hubs.

St Anne’s aim is to work in partnership to offer the best early support for our children and families, and ensure the children’s safety and wellbeing is a priority.

Both our taught and wider curriculum provide opportunities to teach children about the privileges of British society, including free speech and democracy, as well as British law which protects the rights of all our citizens to be safe, listened to and to be treated equally with respect.

The school always follows legislation that aims to act in the interests of the child.

The Prevent Duty

From July 1st 2015 all schools are subject to a duty under section 26 of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, to have “due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism.” This duty is known as the PREVENT Duty For Schools.

The statutory guidance refers to the importance of PREVENT awareness training to equip staff to identify children at risk of being drawn into terrorism and to challenge extremist ideas. All our staff receive training and updates on what Prevent is about and how to deal with any issues they may see inside or outside school.

At St Anne’s we believe our children should be given the opportunity to explore the issues of diversity and understand Britain as a multi-cultural society. Providing a safe learning environment in which children can ask questions and talk about concerns in a safe, non judgemental, supportive environment will encourage our children to have an open, well informed and tolerant attitude to multicultural and race issues.

Many of the things we already do in school to help children become positive, happy members of society also contribute to the Prevent strategy. Much of this work is mapped through the curriculum – building pupils’ resilience to radicalisation by promoting fundamental British values and enabling our pupils to challenge extremist views. These include:

Exploring other cultures and religions and promoting diversity
Challenging prejudices and racist comments
Developing thinking skills and a strong, positive self-identity
Promoting the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils, as well as British values such as democracy

We will also protect children from the risk of radicalisation, for example by using filters on the internet to make sure they can’t access extremist and terrorist material, or by vetting visitors who come into school to work with pupils.

Prevent and British values

Schools have been required to promote British values since 2014, and this will continue to be part of our response to the Prevent strategy.

British values include:

The rule of law
Individual liberty and mutual respect
Tolerance of different faiths and beliefs

Age appropriate learning

The Prevent strategy is not just about discussing extremism itself, which may not be appropriate for younger children. It is also about teaching children values such as tolerance and mutual respect. Any discussions including vocabulary used will be suitable for the age and maturity of the children involved.

Key terms

Extremism – vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values such as democracy, the rule of law and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs

Ideology – a set of beliefs

Terrorism – a violent action against people or property, designed to create fear and advance a political, religious or ideological cause

Radicalisation – the process by which a person comes to support extremist ideas.

External Link: Prevent Duty Guidance
External Link: Education Against Hate

View our Child Protection Policy on our Policies page

Download: Keeping Children Safe in Education 2024 Part One [PDF]

Online Safety Policies

View our Online Safety Policy on our Policies page

View our Acceptable User Policy – Staff, Governors & Volunteers on our Policies page
View our Acceptable User Policy – Parents on our Policies page
View our Acceptable User Policy – Visitors & Contractors on our Policies page
View our Acceptable User Policy – KS1 Pupils on our Policies page
View our Acceptable User Policy – KS2 Pupils on our Policies page
View our Acceptable User Policy – Pupil Symbols on our Policies page

Complaints Policy

View our Complaints Policy on our Policies page