SAFEGUARDING & ATTENDANCE
At Long Lane we believe that safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility. We follow rigorous safeguarding procedures in line with our safeguarding policy and ensure that we always show respect to children and families.
At Long Lane we believe that 'Safeguarding is Everyone's Responsibility'. It is our number one priority when it comes to our children and to do this we require the support from parents and the wider community. If you see anything that is concerning, it is imperative to report it straight away. You can do this directly to the school (if it affects someone here) or directly to children's services (all useful contacts can be found in the policies linked at the bottom of this page). Please click here to view our parents, carers and visitors Safeguarding procedure brochure.
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Our rigorous safeguarding processes, along with a robust pastoral system, which is non-judgemental and inclusive, allows families and children to feel heard, and be open through a therapeutic approach. You can find more information about our behaviour approach, pastoral support and well being on the following pages –
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Children and Family Well being
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A Therapeutic approach to behaviour and learning
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Meet our friendly Safeguarding Team
We are a team of dedicated specialists with many years of experience in the area of safeguarding children. We are committed to ensuring that the children in our care feel safe and are able to speak out when they need to. We are also all members of the pastoral team who meet regularly to discuss and support children with processes and individual circumstances. We bring different roles to the team (such as behaviour, SEND, ELSA) to ensure that their is cohesion in supporting children and families in their community.
WE WANT EVERY CHILD TO FEEL SAFE IN SCHOOL AND AT HOME — WHEREVER THEY ARE!
Safeguarding your child covers a range of areas in which we are robust with policy, procedure and protocol.
It is not only important to us that we are keeping our children and staff safe
but also that we address the need for them to 'feel safe'.
Children need to feel safe
We ensure that children feel safe at Long Lane by listening to them. We ensure that children feel listened to and are proactive about making ourselves approachable. Explicit teaching and support for conflict resolution and our therapeutic approach to behaviour, supports this. We explicitly teach them the ways in which we keep them safe in school.
E-safety
We are proactive in teaching children about internet safety at an age appropriate level through each key stage. Woven into the curriculum are opportunities for debates and discussion, workshops, assemblies and curriculum tasks. We invite external agencies in to support us with this and include parents with this support as well. We are proactive about dealing with any concerns or worries about internet safety if we are made aware.
Recruitment
Safeguarding is not just about what happens when in school, it also concerns the assurance that anyone involved with school is a safe adult. All visitors, volunteers and staff go through a rigorous safeguarding process in order to be able to be connected to the school and our pupils. Our DSL's are trained in safer recruitment and all staff understand the need to speak up if they see any concerns in school (whistleblowing policy and procedure).
WE DO LOTS OF THINGS TO KEEP YOU SAFE AT SCHOOL
Make sure that the internet in school only shows you age-appropriate information, and teach you about internet safety.
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Talk about feelings when someone has been unkind or there is conflict so that you can be happy at playtime.
Make sure that all the adults in school are safe and trained to do their jobs.
Practice safety at school such as fire drills, listening to adults, and checking the physical environment and play equipment is safe.
We listen to children when they are worried or scared, and we work with all the adults to make things better.
We use language of respect with children – their names, no discriminatory terms or nicknames.
We keep personal information private – only the adults who need to know (who can help) will know
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We have strict rules about photography and filming in school and always ask parents permission
Attendance is everyone's responsibility and there are strong links between attendance and safeguarding children. We believe that attendance issues could be caused by a deeper issue or something that we can help with.
At Long Lane we recognise that ‘Attendance is everyone’s responsibility’ and therefore all staff take an active role in reporting and supporting attendance for pupils and families. All schools are required by law to collect and report attendance of their pupils.
Long Lane recognises that there may be many reasons why pupils may have difficulties attending school regularly and will ensure to provide support for special circumstances. As described in our ethos, we take a therapeutic approach to supporting pupils and families who may need additional help in attending school regularly.
It is important to us as a school that, first and foremost, we ensure that the learning and curriculum that we provide in school is of excellent quality so that all children want to be in school learning at every opportunity (see vision ‘No Learner Left Behind’ and 'Love of Learning'). We work proactively to promote an anti-bullying, inclusive and robust safeguarding procedure through our therapeutic behaviour policy, No Outsiders programme and pastoral triage system to ensure that children feel valued and safe whilst at school.
Where there is a concern about attendance, we first and foremost, work with the pupil and their family in order to reduce barriers and support increasing attendance together. Long Lane supports a 4 stage process to do this.
If you have exceptional circumstances and wish to request a leave of absence during term time, please complete the request form (available from the school office) as far in advance of the requested leave period as possible. You may be asked for evidence to support these circumstances.
POLICY SPOTLIGHT