Safeguarding and Online Safety

Safeguarding is the responsibility of all adults and especially those working or volunteering with children.
Safeguarding statement

Safeguarding legislation and government guidance says that safeguarding means:

Protecting children from maltreatment, preventing impairment of children’s health or development, ensuring that children are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care and taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes.

Pioneer School Prevent Strategy

As part of Pioneer School’s commitment to safeguarding and child protection we support the government’s Prevent Strategy, and take guidance from the teaching approaches to help to build resilience to extremism.


‍What is the Prevent Strategy?

The Prevent strategy is a government strategy designed to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorist or extremist causes. The prevent strategy covers all types of terrorism and extremism, including the extreme right wing, religious extremists and other causes. Many of the things we already do in school to help children become positive, happy members of society also contribute to the Prevent strategy.

Child Protection: is part of safeguarding and promoting student welfare. It involves measures and structures designed to prevent and respond to significant harm, abuse, exploitation and neglect.

Safeguarding includes: Child Protection, Health Care Plans, Health and Safety, Site Security, Safety on school trips and visits, Safer recruitment – School Central Record & DBS checks, online safety and associated issues, anti-bullying work, children’s & learner’s health, mental health and emotional well-being and so much more.

At Pioneer School, we build pupils’ resilience to radicalisation by promoting fundamental British values.

British values include:

  • Democracy
  • The rule of law
  • Individual liberty and mutual respect
  • Tolerance of different faiths and beliefs

The statutory guidance refers to the importance of Prevent awareness training to equip staff to identify children at risk of being drawn into terrorism and to challenge extremist ideas. At our school all teaching and support staff have completed training.

eSafety
  • Keep an eye on your child’s internet use including email and social media (Facebook, Snapchat, etc)
  • Check the history folder of your internet browser to check what sites have been accessed
  • Consider purchasing filter software or see if your ISP (BT, Sky, Talk Talk, etc) provide their own
  • Protect your computer with firewall/antivirus software

All staff have been trained on how to report safeguarding and technical concerns within our safeguarding protocol, such as if:

  • They witness or suspect unsuitable material has been accessed
  • They are able to access unsuitable material
  • They are teaching topics that could create unusual activity on the filtering logs
  • There is a failure in the software or an abuse of the system
  • There are perceived unreasonable restrictions that affect teaching and learning or administrative tasks
  • They notice abbreviations or misspellings that allow access to restricted material
Further useful contacts
eSafety Student Guidance
  • Never post your personal information, such as a mobile phone number, home address, or the name of your school
  • Be aware that information you give out through social networking sites, instant messages, emails and blogs could put you at risk of bullying or harassment
  • Never meet in person with anyone you first “met” online. Some people may not be who they say they are
  • Remember that posting information about your friends could put them at risk
  • Never respond to harassing or rude texts, messages and emails. Delete any unwanted messages or friends who continuously leave inappropriate comments
  • Never give out your password to anyone other than your parent or carer
  • If you would not say something to another person’s face, do not post it online!
  • Only add people as friends to your site if you know them in real life
  • Think before posting your photos. DO NOT post or send semi-nude or nude pictures of yourself or anyone else. Personal photos should not have revealing information such as school names or location
  • Use the privacy settings of the social networking sites