Safeguarding
At Ravenswood Community Primary School, we are vigilant in keeping all children safe from harm and are committed to safeguarding our children. All adults, including staff, parents and governors, have a shared responsibility to safeguard children; any concerns, no matter how small, should be shared with the Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL).
If anyone has concerns about a member of staff, these should be reported to Mr Saunders. If the concern is about Mr Saunders, the concern should be reported to the Chair of Governors, Mr Robert Smith, or Executive Leader of Education at Eko Trust, Deb Strain.
Anyone can make a referral about their concerns directly to:
The schools safeguarding team (listed below)
Customer First: 0808 800 4005
Police: 101
What is safeguarding?
The definition of safeguarding, as used in the Children Act 2004 and in the Department for Education guidance document ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’:
- protecting children and learners from maltreatment
- preventing impairment of children’s and learners’ health or development
- ensuring that children and learners are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care
- undertaking that role so as to enable those children and learners to have optimum life chances and to enter adulthood successfully.
Ensuring the children of Ravenswood Community Primary School feel safe and secure is essential to ensure they are happy in their lives both now and in the future, and to enable them to fully access the education they are entitled to.
Local Contact Information
Multi-agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH)
Professional Helpline: 0345 606 1499
MASH webchat facility
Customer First (Professional Referral Line)
Emergecy only: 0345 606 6167
Customer First: 0808 800 4005
Police
Emergency only: 999
Suffolk Police
Main switchboard: 01473 613500
Cybercrime Unit: 101
Suffolk Local Safeguarding Partnership
www.suffolksp.org.uk
Suffolk County Council:
www.suffolk.gov.uk/community-and-safety/staying-safe-online/e-safer-suffolk
Safeguarding Team Members and Key Policies
Senior Safeguarding Lead (DSL) - Mrs L Schultz
SENCO (DDSL) - Mrs N Ritchie
Thrive Practictioner (DDSL) - Mrs R Thorp
Safeguarding Governor - Mr R Smith
Early Help, Children Protection and Safeguarding Policy 2025
PREVENT
The Prevent strategy, published by the Government in 2011, is part of our overall counter-terrorism strategy, CONTEST. The aim of the Prevent strategy is to reduce the threat to the UK from terrorism by stopping people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. In the Act, this has simply been expressed as the need to ‘prevent people from being drawn into terrorism’. The 2011 Prevent strategy has three specific strategic objectives:
- respond to the ideological challenge of terrorism and the threat we face from those who promote it
- prevent people from being drawn into terrorism and ensure that they are given appropriate advice and support
- work with sectors and institutions where there are risks of radicalisation that we need to address
Our lead PREVENT officer is Mrs Hancock. Our alternate PREVENT officer is Mr Saunders.
Online Safety
Online Safety is an important part of keeping children safe at Ravenswood Primary School. We have extensive measures in place in school, which are monitored both internally and externally, to help safeguard pupils from potential dangers or unsuitable material. All incidents are recorded and managed using the CPOMs portal. Parents/Carers are contacted and supported to work through issues together.
Online Safety is taught to all pupils explaining and demonstrating how to stay safe and behave appropriately online. As a school, this happens at the start of every computing session using the Project Evolve. We teach our children how to stay safe online through our computing sessions and our PHSE curriculum. We have developed strong links with our local area policing team to ask for support and guidance for our families. We offer joint half-termly drop in sessions for our families to discuss any concerns or worries they may have about their children or just to ask for some advice or information. Our children receive dedicated age-appropriate workshops to tackle online safety issues that arise and reflect the local and national picture for safeguarding.
Our Online Safety Lead is Mrs Hancock. Our Online Curriculum/PSHE Lead is Miss Jones/Mr Green.
We can only be successful in keeping children safe online if we work together with our families to ensure the online safety message is consistent. It is important that families speak to their children about how they can keep safe and behave appropriately online. It is essential to be realistic - banning the internet or technology will not work and it often makes a child less likely to report a problem.
Education is the key!
Everyone has their part to play in making the Internet a better place to these tips are a great way to ensure that you are supporting your child to stay safe and positive online.
- Be engaged: Talk regularly with your children about how they use technology, and find out what their digital life is like, including how they communicate using images and videos. Perhaps you can start by discussing your favourite emojis together?
- Be aware: Explore the online features of the devices you already own in your family and the devices you may buy in the future. Knowing how to activate and use parental controls can help protect your child from seeing inappropriate content online.
- Be there: The most important thing is to ensure that you are there if anything goes wrong. Your child might be very embarrassed to discuss the issue they are facing so reassure them that they can turn to you no matter what.
- Be thoughtful: Encourage your children to think critically about the things they see online including the images and videos they view on social media. Discussing what they have seen and the message behind a photo or video can help them consider the difference between fact and opinion.
Click on the below links for a whole host of helpful resources for parents.
Have you heard of a PEGI rating?
One of our more common issues raised at Ravenswood are the suitability, or more often, the unsuitability of various computer games for different age ranges.
Search Engines
Please note that no search engine is ever 100% safe but below provides some links to some 'safer' search engines:
Research searching – Kids Yahoo
Google offers a safer search option for children searching on the Internet.
Image searching – Pics4Learning picsearch
Gaming
When children are accessing games via Xbox LIVE, privacy settings can be set up. To read more, click here.