St. Michael's CE School
Working Together For The Good Of All
“St. Michael’s Church of England School, established upon Christian foundations and living out the Christian faith, is committed to providing every child with an excellent education.”
GOVERNOR SAFEGUARDING
Quality Assurance - Safeguarding - Governors
The Board of Governors of St. Michael’s CE School, in partnership with the staff, fully recognise their statutory responsibilities and duties placed upon them to have arrangements in place to safeguard and promote the welfare of all pupils at the school. The Board of Governors recognise that all members of our school community, Governors included, have a full and active part to play in protecting pupils from harm.
"Governing bodies and proprietors have a strategic leadership responsibility for their school’s or college’s safeguarding arrangements and must ensure that they comply with their duties under legislation. They must have regard to this guidance, ensuring policies, procedures and training in their schools or colleges are effective and comply with the law at all times."
The Board of Governors at St. Michael's is fully compliant with child protection and safeguarding and ensures, through challenging the Headteacher and Senior Leadership Safeguarding Team, that safeguarding and child protection are at the "forefront and underpin all relevant aspects of process and policy development" within the school.
The Board of Governors, through the monitoring by the Designated Safeguarding Governor Lead (Co-Chair: John Whitehouse), ensures that all of the procedures, policies and systems "operate with the best interests of the child at their heart". (KCSiE: Point 82).
The Board of Governors receive regular monthly reports from the Headteacher and Senior Leadership Safeguarding Team about the safeguarding procedures and processes which includes up to date information relating to this area.
Furthermore, the Board of Governors have completed the annual online safeguarding training from an online external consultancy and subscribe to the weekly safeguarding updates.
The following areas below demonstrate this.
Weekly Challenge
As part of the Staff and Governors on-going development and understanding of ‘Keeping Children Safe In Education’ and their responsibilities towards safeguarding, a weekly challenge is published for all staff and governors to follow.
The Headteacher drafts challenging questions and bitesize virtual training and staff/governors are randomly challenged. It is their responsibility to ensure that they read and research answers and also ensure that they have read the school website tabs.
Online Safeguarding Course
The Board of Governors have completed the Andrew Hall online Governance Safeguarding course. This online course provided the Governors with a ten-week course covering all aspects of safeguarding and developed/enhanced their knowledge of the subject.
Referral to the Disclosure Barring Service (DBS)
The school and Board of Governors is fully compliant with the recommendations as outlined in the document 'Inspecting Safeguarding in Early Years, Education and Skills: (August 2021)' and recognise that they have a legal obligation to have procedures in place to make a referral to the DBS "if a person in a regulated activity has been dismissed or removed due to safeguarding concerns or would have been removed had they not resigned." The school is fully compliant and would seek advice from LADO before proceeding.