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Safeguarding 

Westleigh Methodist Primary is committed to keeping our pupils safe, both in school and the wider community.

The safety and welfare of all our students is of utmost importance to us. Please contact the school directly if you have a concern about the welfare of a child and speak to one of our DSL's.

Designated Safeguarding lead:
Mrs Burkes (Exec Headteacher)

Deputy Safeguarding Leads:
Mrs Taylor (Deputy Headteacher)
Mr Hewitt (Pastoral Manager)

Mrs Hilton-Fahey (SENDCo)
Mrs Coleman (Year 6 teacher, Maths Lead)

Governor Lead: Mrs E Brighton 

Trustee Lead: Barbara Easton

Further advise can be sought via the following:

Children’s Duty Team: 01942 828300

Professionals referral form can be found on the wigan.gov website under Children’s Health and Social Care

Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO): Andrew Chisnall
LADO telephone number: 07500063057
LADO out of normal office hours: 01942 828300 
LADO Email: lado@wigan.gov.uk 

Parents advice and support

The government have released some updated guidance on safeguarding. 

This guidance brings together sources of information about the main risks children may be particularly vulnerable to during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and signposts you to help and support available.

The essential measures to control coronavirus can potentially increase risks to children and this can cause concern for parents and carers.

This guide also includes information on the support providers who can help you have effective conversations with a young person, especially if you are concerned for their safety. Please use the link below to access this guidance:

https://www.gov.uk/advice-to-parents-and-carers-on-keeping-children-safe-from-abuse-and-harm

Wigan's Safeguarding Children Board have produced a helpful website that offers advice and support for parents if they are concerned for a child's welfare. This can be from bullying and abuse to internet safety. If you have a concern about a child's welfare please use the following link to gain the information that you need:

http://www.wiganlscb.com/Parent/Index.aspx  

Lots of practical resources to support a wide range of concerns including:

  1. Tackling Sleep Problems in Children and Teens
  2. Supporting Your Child Through School Anxiety
  3. Improving School Attendance
  4. Child Mental Health & Wellbeing
  5. Parental Mental Health & Wellbeing

can be accessed via: Parental Resources | SSS Learning

 Operation Encompass 

Operation Encompass is a new initiative which will endeavour to provide support for children and young people who have experienced domestic abuse in their household.  It is a partnership between the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH), Wigan Safeguarding Children’s Board and designated school staff, known as Key Adults.  The MASH team will inform Key Adults within schools about any domestic abuse incident where the child has been present or affected.  This will enable schools to take appropriate steps to support our pupils during what could be an emotionally difficult time.  We are hoping to have this up and running before the end of the Autumn Term.

Online Safety 

The main reason that we provide internet access to our teachers and pupils is to promote educational excellence by facilitating resource sharing, innovation and communication. Internet access will be authorised once parents and pupils have returned the signed consent form as part of the Acceptable Use Policy. A record will be kept by the Headteacher of all pupils who have been granted internet access.

All users in Year 2 and above will be provided with usernames and passwords, and are advised to keep this confidential to avoid any other pupils using their login details. Pupils’ passwords are set and their activity is continuously monitored by the Pastoral Manager and the schools’ Senso Safegaurding system and online filtering is in place via Sophos XG Fire Wall. Sophos XG Firewall ensures that when children are online content is filtered to ensure they are safe when browsing.  

Management systems are in place to allow teachers and members of staff to control workstations and monitor pupils’ activity. Senso is used to support schools in this. Senso is used to address e-safety and monitor the safe use of computers, on and offline. This helps to identify safeguarding risks from the words that are typed, even if not saved in documents. This is to help address worries that children may have by; letting them confide anonymously, resolve bullying issues, detect issues that children may be of concern to a safeguarding officer.

All school systems will be protected by up-to-date virus software. Sophos provides online security for schools in the Trust. Sophos guards the schools’ internet connections from threats that are posed to internet users and the network infrastructure. This helps to prevent hacking of systems and data and a wide range of malware, viruses etc. This also helps to restrict access to inappropriate web-content.

Find out more about how children use social media; the apps they use; potential risks they face; using privacy settings and advice and tips on how to talk to your children about e-safety.

There is a lot of support available to keep children safe online. Below are some useful links to help parents and carers:

Further documents and policies to support Safeguarding within our school can be found attached below:

  1. Keeping Children Safe in Education 2023
    pdf
  2. Keeping Children Safe in Education 2023 Part one
    pdf
  3. Working Together Safeguard Children Statutory Framework
    pdf
  4. Child Missing Education Policy
    pdf
  5. Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy 2023
    pdf