Safeguarding our children, staff and visitors is a fundamental part of our work. Within our school, we follow clear policies and procedures to ensure that children are safe from harm. School adheres to DfE Guidance ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’ which is underpinned by our school policy and practice.
The Safeguarding Policy and Procedure is available here.
Our Designated Safeguarding Lead is: Mrs Brooks
Our Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead is: Mrs Gillan
Please click here to read ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education 2024’.
As part of St Vincent’s commitment to keeping children safe, we are proud to be part of Operation Encompass.
Operation Encompass is a unique Police and education early intervention safeguarding partnership which supports children and young people exposed to domestic abuse.
From April 2019, Police will inform Rochdale schools prior to the start of the following school day, when a child or young person has been involved in or exposed to a domestic incident.
Being part of Operation Encompass means our school will receive a notification from Greater Manchester Police before the start of the next school day when a child or young person has been involved in or exposed to a domestic abuse incident the previous day. Operation Encompass aims to mitigate harm to children by enabling immediate support, so that all interactions from when the child first arrives at school the day after notification of an incident, are of a positive nature.
All information relating to Operation Encompass is given in strict confidence to the school’s Key Adults.
The Key Adults at St. Vincent’s are Mrs Brooks & Mrs Gillan.
While there are huge benefits to being online in order to stay connected to friends and family, it’s important to have regular conversations with your children about staying safe online and encouraging them to talk to you if they see anything worrying.
What harms might my child experience online?
You may have concerns about specific harms that your children experience online including: abuse, criminal exploitation, exposure to radicalising content, consensual and non-consensual sharing of images/videos, cyber-bullying, exposure to age-inappropriate content and harmful content.
Where can I go for help?
These resources will support you to talk to your child about a range of online safety issues, set up home filtering in a child-friendly way and set up age-appropriate parental controls on digital devices:
Sometimes we may need to share information and work in partnership with other agencies when there are concerns about a child’s welfare. We will ensure that our concerns about our pupils are discussed with his/her parents/carers first unless we have reason to believe that such a move would be contrary to the child’s welfare.
We actively support the Government’s Prevent Agenda to counter radicalism and extremism.
The Prevent strategy is a key part of the UK government’s counter-terrorism strategy, CONTEST, and is focused on preventing individuals from being drawn into terrorism or extremist ideologies. In schools, the Prevent strategy is implemented as part of a broader duty of care, aiming to safeguard children from risks of radicalisation.
Possible signs include:
Prevent principles are integrated into our curriculum, including:
Early Help is in place to ensure that families have help and support at the point of need. School is equipped to provide support to families and is able to access a range of services on behalf of families and children.
We have highly skilled staff who are equipped to provide support and advice to help families if they are experiencing any issues from routines at home to accessing support for housing.
Rochdale Local Authority have issued an Early Help Guide for families, which is available here.
