Safeguarding Procedures in Schools; Our investigation
When children are in school, the parents and school have entered a contract of loco parentis. They trust that their child will be educated, disciplined and socialised in a caring, safe environment, with the adults they come into contact with taking the same level of responsibility as the parents themselves.
An effective safeguarding policy is more likely to deter abusers, as well as empowering parents and children to speak about any abuse, thus reducing lifelong trauma and preventing other victims from suffering. The government’s statutory requirements do not ensure that an effective policy exists in all schools. For instance, there is no statutory obligation on the management of a school to report allegations or even known incidents of abuse to the authorities. Parents are mostly unaware of this, and trust that the safeguarding policy is adequate without checking it themselves. When they do check it, they find it is in education jargon and difficult to interpret.
We are seeking to educate and empower parents to demand that their children are protected from abuse within church schools. We have hundreds of cases where abuse has occurred in church schools, and then been covered up. This following document provides evidence that many Church of England and Catholic schools still do not have effective polices in place. This means that we can have no confidence that the child sex abuse scandal within churches and church schools is a thing of the past. Children today are being put at risk by inadequate child protection procedures in church schools.
The Department of Education’s statutory guidelines, last updated in July 2009, state:
“The local authority is required to take the lead role in ensuring the safety of children and young people but safeguarding is everybody’s responsibility. Safeguarding should be of concern to the whole community. All public services, not just those directly providing services for children, have a role in safeguarding children and young people for example housing and leisure services.”
For church schools to make their contribution to this, they need to report any suspected abuse to the Local Authority Designated Officer for Child Abuse (LADO), without delay. Unfortunately, this is merely guidance, and schools have no statutory obligation to follow it. We have found that a large proportion of church schools do not commit to reporting all allegations or incidents of abuse.
Lucy Duckworth, (BA Hons, PGCE) a qualified senior teacher with specialism in educational needs and child protection (level 2) along with Jonathan West, an experienced child protection campaigner, put together a list of ten points that every school should have in their policy in order to effectively protect children from abuse while at school and thus acting as a deterrent for abusers. We then graded 30 schools of Catholic and Church of England denomination, and found the following results. The safeguarding policy for every school should:
1. Be written in plain accessible English and published on the school website, so that parents can easily access it and interpret its contents, and staff can easily operate it.
2. Have clear descriptions of the kinds ofabusethat are the subject of the policy, briefly and clearly describing the 4 main categories of abuse (emotional, physical, sexual, neglect), giving examples of symptoms that indicate that abuse might be occurring.
3. Make a commitment to safer recruiting practice, this includes requiring every adult coming into contact with children to have a clear criminal records bureau check with enhanced disclosure, as well as having two clean references from previous employers, that demonstrate the person’s good character. Safer recruiting practice is a school’s first line of defence against abusers, by keeping known threats to children’s safety from entering the school in the first place.
4. Commit to ensuring that every incident or allegation ofabusewill be reported promptly and in writing to the Local Authority Designated Officer for Child Protection (LADO). (The LADO then decides what further action need be taken.) This prevents the abuse being investigated by untrained staff within the school, who may be more inclined to protect the adult or the school’s reputation, rather than fully investigating the allegation. Even if made initially by telephone the report must be made in writing. There must be no exceptions to this policy of reporting for any reason.
5. Commit to ensuring appropriate levels of safeguarding training for all staff: All staff must have external training every three years, designated person must have external training every two years, and in house child protection training must be delivered annually. This is in compliance with government recommendations: designated person safeguarding training is more advanced than basic safeguarding training that all teachers must undertake on appointment.
6. Avoid and dependency on external, third party, documents (e.g. local safeguarding children’s board documents, church guidelines) for describing the school's own reporting procedures. Unless the school’s reporting procedures are clearly described in the school’s own policy, the staff will be unsure about reporting procedures and the parents have no means of holding the school to account.
7. Include or make reference to guidance for staff on avoiding situations whereabusemight occur or allegations might arise. Staff may not be aware that taking a student in the front seat of their car, talking to them in a room with the door closed etc. can lead to situations/allegations of abuse.
8. Have a named member of teaching staff who is the Designated Senior Person for Safeguarding Children and a named member of teaching staff who is Deputy Designated Senior Person for Safeguarding Children, so that parents and staff know exactly who to speak to and cannot be ‘referred on’
9. Have a named member of the board of Governors who is Designated Safeguarding Governor and has a named member of the board of Governors who is Deputy Designated Safeguarding Governor. Governors do not have daily contact with the school but have more authority in procedures; having designated safeguarding governors gives parents and colleagues a further avenue to pursue if they are not happy with their first response, as well as ensuring that all management within the school are aware of the investigations.
10. Ensure that all safeguarding issues and incidents are fully recorded, the records being copied and kept separate from other school records in locked cabinets, and that these records are made available to the inspectors and provided to each new Headteacher on his or her appointment (known as the Red Book procedure). This ensures that each new headteacher is fully aware of the safeguarding situation on appointment and that nothing is hidden from the school inspectors. (This is known as the Red Book procedure.)
The following table marks against the above points, as well as demonstrating that most the inspections, completed by either Ofsted, Commission for Social Care Inspection, (CSCI) or Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI) fail to recognise the failings in safeguarding procedures. More schools will be added as they are completed. If you would like us to look at a particular school policy, please CONTACT US with the name of the school and it will be displayed on the table as soon as we can review the school’s policy.
Abbreviated version of criteria
1. Policy published on the school website.
2. Clear description of types of abuse (emotional, physical, sexual, neglect).
3. Safer recruiting practice (Enhanced CRBs, References etc).
4. Report all allegations and incidents of abuse to the LADO promptly and in writing – no exceptions.
5. Safeguarding training at appropriate intervals for all staff.
6. Avoid relying on external documents to describe procedures.
7. Guidance to staff on avoiding situations where abuse or allegations of abuse can occur.
8. Named designated teacher and deputy designated teacher for safeguarding.
9. Named designated governor and deputy designated governor for safeguarding.
10. Secure and thorough record keeping, all safeguarding records available to inspectors and to the next headteacher.