What is this?
The Halley Academy has a Child Protection Policy. This ‘student friendly’ information is designed for young people and should be read as a guide to the main policy.
What is it for?
To help young people decide what could be a ‘problem’ and where to get help and support.
The Halley Academy recognises our statutory responsibility to safeguard and promote the welfare of all children. Safeguarding is everybody’s responsibility.
Staff working with children at The Halley Academy will maintain an attitude of ‘it could happen here’ where safeguarding is concerned and we believe that the best interests of children always come first. All children have a right to be heard and to have their wishes and feelings taken into account and all children regardless of age, gender, ability, culture, race, language, religion or sexual identity, have equal rights to protection.
A child is anyone under the age of 18.
We recognise the importance of providing an ethos and environment within The Halley Academy that will help children to be safe and feel safe. In our academy children are respected and encouraged to talk openly. All our staff understand safe professional practice and adhere to our safeguarding policies.
What is child protection and safeguarding about?
Our core safeguarding principles are:
- Prevention
- Protection
- Support
- Working with parents and other agencies
The Halley Academy expects that if any member of our community has a safeguarding concern about any child or adult, they should act immediately.
At The Halley Academy we believe that young people’s health, safety and welfare are very important. In our academy, we respect children and help to protect children’s rights. We will ensure that children make good educational progress and teach our young people how to recognise risks in different situations, and how to protect themselves and stay safe, including online.
How will we protect children?
- We will provide a safe environment.
- We will deliver a high quality Values curriculum, Relationships and Sex Education and assembly programmes, which includes online safety and sexual harassment and violence.
- We will ensure our children know where to get help if they are worried – there are Safeguarding Team posters around the academy. The academy website has a number of safeguarding links to help. Adults in school are trained to help and keep children safe.
- We will listen and work with other agencies to provide the best support.
There are many staff at the academy for young people to talk to and they will help and support.
The four main areas of Child Protection concerns are:
- Physical Abuse – hitting, smacking, shaking, throwing, burning, biting are some of the examples.
- Sexual Abuse – this doesn’t always mean actually touching a child. It could be someone making children watch things to do with sex or encouraging them to act in an inappropriate way.
- Neglect – this means things like not providing meals or warmth or clothing. Or perhaps not taking a child to the Doctors when they need to go. There may be lots of different reasons why a child is neglected and it is really important that we know so we can help.
- Emotional Abuse – This means when a family member upsets children or makes them feel bad, says horrible things to them and makes them feel sad and worthless.
The academy also acknowledges that safeguarding includes a wide range of specific issues including (but not limited to):
- Bullying, including cyberbullying
- Children with family members in prison
- Children Missing Education (CME)
- Child missing from home or care
- Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE)
- Child Criminal Exploitation (CCE)
- Contextual safeguarding (risks outside the family home)
- County lines and gangs
- Domestic abuse
- Drugs and alcohol misuse
- Fabricated or induced illness
- Faith abuse
- Gender based abuse and violence against women and girls
- Hate
- Homelessness
- Human trafficking and modern slavery
- Mental health
- Nude or semi-nude image sharing, aka youth produced/involved sexual imagery or “Sexting”
- Online safety
- Peer on peer abuse
- Preventing radicalisation and extremism
- Private fostering
- Relationship abuse
- Serious Violence
- Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment
- Sexting
- So-Called honour-based abuse including Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and forced marriage
- Upskirting
There are lots of different ways in which The Halley Academy can help. One of the main ways is to ensure that staff at the academy know how to keep children safe and ensure there is someone who young people can talk to if they need to.
There are times the academy may need to contact other agencies for support. These may be Children’s Social Care (Social Workers) or Police. There are lots of other agencies who support children and their families as well. A member of the safeguarding team will talk to you and explain this if other agencies are contacted.
The small school teams can always help and the academy has a number of staff who have specific responsibilities for safeguarding and child protection:
- Principal – Mr Dixon
- Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) – Mrs Cronin
- Deputy Designated Safeguarding Leads – Mr Russell, Mr Stevens, Ms Wilson, Mr Harrison
- Looked After Children Coordinator – Mr Stevens
- Safeguarding Governor – Mr Jarrett