Safeguarding

"Every student should be safe and feel safe"

At West Heath School, we believe that all students are entitled to be treated with dignity, courtesy and respect regardless of their age, race, gender or ability and will not tolerate any behaviour that is abusive to our students, whether it occurs at school and involves school staff or another student or has happened at the student's home or within another service or area of the student's life.

We are committed to actively enable our students to learn and achieve. Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of each student, plays a really important part in helping our students achieve positive outcomes.

Our statutory duty relating to safeguarding is set out in “Working Together to Safeguard Children A guide to inter-agency working to safeguard and promote the welfare of children” (July 2018) and “Keeping Children Safe in Education” (September 2021) which states:

Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is defined for the purposes of this guidance as: protecting children from maltreatment; preventing impairment of children’s 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.

Children includes everyone under the age of 18

Where a child is suffering, or is likely to suffer from harm, it is important that a referral to children’s social care (and if appropriate the police) is made immediately. Referrals should follow the local referral process.

Keeping Children Safe in Education, September 2021, DfE

We take our responsibility to safeguard and promote welfare very seriously, working hard to make sure all of the school’s activities and procedures support and promote safeguarding. Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of our students who are 18 years and over is equally important to us.

Through our curriculum we teach the children about personal safety, and how to keep themselves safe from harm and promote modern British values.

There is a strong anti-bullying/harassment ethos throughout the school. We teach our students how to recognise all forms of bullying, including sexual harassment and build on their skills to keep themselves safe from such behaviours whilst giving them the confidence to report it.

Our curriculum, pastoral care and therapeutic provisions provide the opportunity to discuss feelings and emotions and helps our students to think about their own personal safety and their rights as individuals to be kept safe from harm.

We have clear guidance to help children to use the Internet (including social media) safely and have appropriate filters in place to prevent students accessing inappropriate materials.

Monitoring

We actively plan internal and external scrutiny of our safeguarding work and procedures. We self-assess our safeguarding work and the Trustees’ monitor our compliance with statutory safeguarding responsibilities. Specific trustees have a responsibility for Safeguarding and Whistle Blowing.

Our external partners who monitor and help us develop our safeguarding work are:

Independent Standards Visitor
Ofsted
Independent Service Reviews
Designated Officer (Kent County Council)
Area Safeguarding Advisor ( The Education safeguarding service)
Independent DSL Supervision

Our Designated Safeguarding School Staff are:

Tracey Goodland	Head of Care & Safeguarding (DSL/DSAL)
Photini Bohacek	Principal (Lado referrals)
Craig Gibson	HEART Manager (Deputy DSL)
Francis Osei-Appiah	Residential Manager (Deputy DSL)
Julie Bellamy	Head of Induction & Transition (Deputy DSL)
Kelly Bennett	Head of Upper School (Deputy DSL/DSAL)
Sian Little	Learning Support Manager (Deputy DSL)
Connor Booker	Education Offsite Specialist SLA (Deputy DSL)
Marina Housley	Named Safeguarding Trustee