Manor Court Community Primary School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. Our school recognises its moral and statutory responsibility for safeguarding and takes this very seriously – we believe that safeguarding children is everybody’s responsibility.  We are alert to the signs of abuse and neglect and follow our procedures to ensure children and young people receive effective support and protection Staff are encouraged to report any concerns about the well-being of our pupils to the Designated Safeguarding Officer or one of the safeguarding team: 
                        

What is safeguarding?

Safeguarding is the action that is taken to promote the welfare of children and protect them from harm. Safeguarding means:

• Protecting children from abuse and maltreatment.
• Preventing harm to children’s health or development.
• Ensuring children grow up with the provision of safe and effective care.
• Taking action to enable all children and young people to have the best outcomes.

Child protection is part of the safeguarding process. It focuses on protecting individual children identified as suffering or likely to suffer significant harm. This includes child protection procedures which detail how to respond to concerns about a child.

Safeguarding children and child protection guidance and legislation applies to all children up to the age of 18. There has been recent legislation changes to Keeping Children Safe in Education (September 2018) and Working Together To Safeguard children (July 2018). This is statutory guidance from the Department for Education and all schools and colleges in England must have regard to it when carrying out their duties to safeguard and promote the welfare of children

Reporting 
If you have any worries regarding child protection issues, please speak to a member of the safeguarding team.

Alternatively, if you are worried about a child or young person who could be in danger please contact 

• Children’s Social Care on 0300 123 2224 
• by email at childrens@somerset.gov.uk
• or the police

You can contact the police directly by dialling 101 and they will discuss with Children's Social Care what action should be taken. In an emergency always contact the police by dialling 999.
If you would like to speak to a social worker outside of office hours please phone the 
Emergency Duty Team (EDT) on 0300 123 23 27

Forms of abuse
Child abuse usually falls into one or more of four categories: physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse and neglect.

Physical abuse
Physical abuse may involve hitting, shaking, throwing, poisoning, burning or scalding, drowning, suffocating or otherwise causing physical harm to a child. It may also be caused when a parent or carer fabricates symptoms of, or induces, illness in a child.

Emotional abuse
Emotional abuse is the persistent emotional ill treatment of a child to cause severe and persistent effects on the child’s emotional development, and may involve:

• Telling a child that they are worthless, unloved, inadequate, or valued only to meet the needs of another person. 
• Imposing developmentally inappropriate expectations, for example interactions beyond the child’s developmental capability, over-protection, limitation of exploration and learning, preventing the child from participation in normal social interaction. 
• Causing a child to feel frightened or in danger, for example witnessing domestic violence, seeing or hearing the ill treatment of someone else. 
• Exploitation or corruption of a child. 
• Online bullying. 

Sexual abuse
Sexual abuse involves forcing or enticing a child to take part in sexual activities, including prostitution, whether or not they are aware of what is happening.
Activities may involve physical contact, including penetrative and non-penetrative acts. Sexual activities may also include non-contact activities, for example involving a child in looking at, or production of, abusive images (maybe online), watching sexual activities or encouraging them to behave in sexually inappropriate ways. Children under sixteen years of age cannot lawfully consent to sexual intercourse. 

Neglect
Neglect involves the persistent failure to meet a child’s basic physical or psychological needs, likely to result in the serious impairment of the child’s health and development.

Contextual safeguarding

Contextual safeguarding is an approach to understanding, and responding to, children's experiences of significant harm beyond their families.  It recognises that the different relationships children form in their neighbourhoods, schools and online can feature violence and abuse.  Parents and carers may have little influence over these contexts, and children's experiences of extra-familial abuse can undermine parent-child relationships.

This video from Youtube is a useful tool to help understand what contextual safeguarding is.

Keeping Children Safe Online

We are always keen to ensure that children and parents are up-to-date with online safety.nationalonlinesafety.com regularly produce online safety guides for parents and carers. They aim to provide up to date information about the most popular apps and games that children are using, information about what the apps/games do and information about any potential risks that might be posed.

Please click here for their latest guide 'What parents need to know about TikTok' (formerlymucisal.ly). 

Links to general information: 

Internet matters https://www.internetmatters.org
NSPCC https://www.net-aware.org.uk 
https://parentzone.org.uk/

To report abuse or inappropriate on-line contact (this can include sexting)
https://ceop.police.uk   

NSPCC-02 helpline: 
A free helpline to provide people with expert advice on keeping children safe online call: 0808 800 5002. 

People can also book to speak to an ‘02 Guru’ face to face in one of the 02 stores. For more information visit: 
http://www.nspcc.org.uk/fighting-for-childhood/about-us/partners/nspcc-o2-online-safety-partnership/.

Parental controls: 
For help and guidance on parental controls see: https://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/keeping-children-safe/online-safety/parental-controls/

Video guide for IOS users: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO1TYt5FAo0 

Video guide for Android users: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw0ydY66rq4 

Video on safety using Minecraft: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA_9nckZYLM&feature=youtu.be 

A Parent’s Guide to Minecraft: tips and advice for keeping children safe on Minecraft:
 https://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/keeping-children-safe/online-safety/minecraft-a-parents-guide/

Advice on talking to your child about staying safe online: https://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/keeping-children-safe/online-safety/talking-your-child-staying-safe-online/. This includes what to do if you are 
worried about your child’s safety online, for example, taking inappropriate pictures, sharing personal information and more.

NSPCC Share Aware: 
This link relates to staying safe on social networks, apps and games and includes a parent’s guide to talking to your child about what to share online: https://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/keeping-children-safe/share-aware/

Share Aware guide:

https://www.nspcc.org.uk/globalassets/documents/advice-and-info/share-aware.pdf