St Mark’s Primary School take our Safeguarding and Prevent responsibilities very seriously.

‘We are committed to promoting the welfare and safeguarding all children at St Mark's and expect everyone to share this commitment.’

In line with our safeguarding policy and statutory guidance we have clear procedures in school for responding to any concerns about a child’ s safety or wellbeing.

This means that we continue to ensure that everyone working in the school has successfully completed the necessary clearances to enable them to work with our children. All our staff have completed the appropriate safeguarding training and every member of staff is Prevent trained. We also have a specifically trained team as the nominated Safeguarding and Prevent Leads within our school.

Designated Safeguarding and Prevent Lead: Mrs H Bath.

Deputy Safeguarding Leads: Mrs L Vowles, Miss R Hambleton.

Safeguarding and Prevent Governor: Mrs R Rooke.

Since 2015, schools have had a legal responsibility to promote children's welfare by taking steps to prevent young people from being drawn into terrorism, extremism and radicalisation.

Schools have been tasked to build young people's resilience and promote British Values to prevent radicalisation. They also need to provide a safe place in which children can have age appropriate discussions of some potentially controversial topics and be given the knowledge and confidence to challenge extremist beliefs.

In our school, we do this in the following ways:

• ​Ensure staff and Governors have received appropriate training.
• Have a Designated Safeguarding Lead and Deputy as well as Link Governor.
• Risk assess visitors, visits and speakers in school.
• Promote our Christian Values: Hope, Honesty, Friendship, Forgiveness and Perseverance.
• Promote British Values: Democracy, Rule of Law, Individual Liberty, Tolerance and Mutual Respect.
• Teach PSHE curriculum (Personal, Social, Health Education).
• Teach SMSC (Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural Education - see this section of our website).
• Teach about other faiths in RE (See this section of our website).
• Arranging visits and visitors in/out of school.

Where appropriate, we would always hope to share any concerns we may have about a child with their parents. We also encourage parents to liaise closely with school about their child or any other child that they are concerned about. Part of our legal duty to safeguard children, may also include us needing to consult with and take advice from other agencies such as the Police, or Children’s Social Care, should the need arise.

Safeguarding – visitors to the school site must:

• Report to the main office immediately on arrival.
• Sign in; recording who they are visiting and time of arrival.
• Wear their visitors badge AT ALL TIMES.
• Only use the visitors adults toilets.
• Switched off mobile phones whilst on the school premises.
• Sign out on departure and hand back their badge to the office.

The school is secure during the school day, so all visitors are asked to report to the main entrance. Please be mindful that for everybody’s safety, identification procedures will be carried out; a copy of which are displayed by the office for your information.

All members of staff are vetted against national safeguarding procedures before being allowed to work in school. At least one member of every interview panel has undertaken safer recruitment training to ensure that best practices and all necessary checks are carried out.

If you are concerned about the safety of any pupil, please contact Mrs Bath Headteacher and designated Safeguarding and Prevent lead.