Safeguarding the EMAT Community
Safeguarding Children is everyone’s responsibility
Within the EMAT community of 11 academies, we pride ourselves on keeping children and our local communities safe and supported.
Across the 11 academy sites we have 39 Designated or Alternate Safeguarding Leads, 11 E-Safety Leads and over 14 Mental Health Champions. In addition to this, each Academy Committee has a Designated member of the Academy Committee who is the AC Designated Safeguarding Lead. There is also a Designated Safeguarding Lead for the Trust, currently Mark Cresswell (Primary School Improvement Director) and an Alternate Designated Safeguarding Lead, currently Imran Khan (Primary School Improvement Director). The Chair of the Board, Julie Perry, leads on Safeguarding for the Trustees and Members.
Academy Safeguarding:
Each academy, through its Safeguarding Team, is responsible for the day-to-day care and safety of its pupils and community. We use CPOMS in every academy to record concerns, information and actions towards keeping pupils safe.
The Principal of each academy reports half termly on Safeguarding to their Academy Committee, through the Principal’s Short Report, which identifies categories and numbers of issues reported. They also report on training, updates and feedback.
Each Academy has a dedicated part of their website to show the Safeguarding Team, the local context of support through local groups and multi-agencies involved with the academy, as well as links to CEOPS, Operation Encompass and Online Safety.
Each Academy provides a robust challenge for all visitors on entry, along with a safeguarding information leaflet and signposting to the DSL team available in school on that day. Some leaflets are translated into other languages, dependent on the make-up of the Academy community.
Each academy trains all adults on site with the full Core Package training module at the start of each academic year to provide refresher training and updates on Safeguarding, Child Protection and the Prevent strategy.
For any appointments made to the staff at any of our academies, a very stringent process through our People Team means that all checks and references are fully completed before staff or other adults work in our schools.
We are proud of the hard work and effort that goes into keeping our Academy Communities safe.
Trust Support
The Trust DSL is available at all times to support the DSL teams with Safeguarding; whether this be through talking through particular issues, support on-site for DSLs or by sign-posting to recommended agencies.
There is a Trust DSL Network, made up of one DSL representative from each academy, which meets once a term to talk through new initiatives, training opportunities, local issues and the wider perspectives involving child protection. In addition to this, the Trust DSL produces a termly safeguarding newsletter for all academies – Safeguarding Matters – for DSLs to share more widely amongst the staff.
There is also a recently formed Trust Executive Safeguarding Team made up of the Trust DSL Lead and three experienced DSLs from the academies. This group meets termly to discuss strategy and new approaches or initiatives for the Trust.
Safeguarding and Child Protection is reviewed twice yearly in each academy (along with Attendance) through either a full Academy Review – undertaken by the two PSIDs and often another Principal, or through their annual Trust Safeguarding Audit which results in a full written summary of the findings and actions that need attention.
The Trust DSL has oversight of all the Academies CPOMS recording in terms of the data, not the content, so that areas of need can quickly be identified and support put in place. The Trust DSL reports to the Board of Trustees on all matters Safeguarding
Currently, all our recently Ofsted inspected academies [last 12 months] have been deemed ‘Effective’ in terms of safeguarding.
We are rightly proud of our expertise in this area, and strive to ensure that we provide the necessary support and intervention for our pupils at their times of need in order to secure the best access and opportunity for their education going forward.
Mark Cresswell
Trust DSL and Primary School Improvement Director
Below are documents and policy related to Safeguarding of our students: