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At Portway Primary School, we believe that the welfare of every child is of paramount importance. Our school’s ethos and values ensure that pupils feel secure, are encouraged to talk, are listened to and are safe. Children at our school are able to talk freely to any member of staff at our school if they are worried or concerned about something. In addition, all children at our school have access to an on-site counselling service - Place2Be. Our safeguarding practices have been externally verified as excellent by the organisation SafeCIC, which has awarded us a Gold Standard across all areas of safeguarding (the certification is available to download on this page). Our school is currently working with SafeCIC regarding reaccreditation.
Safeguarding our children underpins everything we do at school. As part of Newham Community Learning, we follow the Trust wide Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy, available on the Policies Page of our Trust website and to download on this page. The policy includes named contacts at all six schools with the Trust. This policy has been adopted from guidance provided by Newham, and includes all guidance contained within the DfE’s Keeping Children Safe in Education document available on this page of gov.uk.
The Trust Board of Newham Community Learning has a Lead Safeguarding trustee, details of which can be found on the Governance Page of the Trust website. Our local governing body at school also has a designated governor who leads safeguarding; James Johnston is also a parent governor.
Our safeguarding practices are further supported by our Safer Recruitment Policy, which details how all staff and volunteers are brought on board, including all the checks that are undertaken. This is also available for review on the Policies Page of the Trust website.
In addition to paid staff and volunteers, there are a number of visitors to our school. In order to ensure the safety of our children, all visitors to our school are asked to read our NCL primaries - Visitors' leaflet and safeguarding advice which outlines our Safeguarding Procedures.
All staff at Portway Primary School receive annual Safeguarding Training. In addition, specific training, including Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) Training and Prevent Duty Training is also provided.
The Designated Child Protection Leads (DSL) are:
Andrew Sellers
Patricia McCartney
Lorna Gilbey
Bradley Smith (Extended Hours)
The Deputy Designated Child Protection Leads are Louise Frempong (FSW) and Jalina Belle (SLT Member).
[Iona Rolfe is currently on maternity leave]
Any Safeguarding concerns should be reported to a member of the Safeguarding Team immediately.
If you have a safeguarding concern about a member of staff, this must be reported to our Head Teacher, Scott Chudley or the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) who can be contacted on 0203 3733803 / 0203 3736706 lado@newham.gov.uk
Our school is part of the Operation Encompass project which runs jointly between the school and Newham Borough Metropolitan Police.
Operation Encompass is a unique Police and Education early intervention safeguarding partnership which supports children and young people exposed to domestic abuse.
Operation Encompass is the process of the police reporting to schools before the start of the next school day when a child or young person has been involved or exposed to a domestic abuse incident the previous evening.
The information is given in strict confidence to the Designated Safeguarding Lead to enable support to be given dependent on the needs and wishes of the child.
For more information, visit the Operation Encompass website.
The following safeguarding resources may be of interest to parents and carers
NSPCC Share Aware – Help your child stay safe on social networks, apps and games.
NSPCC Net Aware – Keep up to date with the digital world.
Parent Info – Information from Parentzone and CEOP