Safeguard My School

Generally, the SENCO forms a part of the wider safeguarding team in schools, after all, we are the ones who ask all the prying questions into a child’s background and spend a lot of time building up relationships with families.  It makes sense.

There is a line in KCSIE (Keeping Children Safe in Education) that really hammers this home for me, “No single practitioner can have a full picture of a child’s needs and circumstances” … but that doesn’t mean within a school we shouldn’t have all of our agency information available in one place.

I know that even if I was a member of the safeguarding team, I would be constantly asked for information about students who fall under my remit.  What support do they get, how are they, have things changed?  And from an SEN perspective it helps to know if a social worker has been involved recently so I’m not on the back foot when walking into a meeting with parents.

There are a few electronic safeguarding programs now available, but Safeguard My School is the only one that links together that SEN picture and your provision mapping with the Safeguarding picture within one program.

As the Safeguarding Coordinator for Edukey, I get to advise the team on safeguarding matters.  All of the staff have a DBS check and everyone has undertaken a level 1 safeguarding course as a minimum, many also undertaking level 2 and above.  Safeguarding appears on our yearly training schedule and any mid-year changes are communicated through team meetings. 

Unlike the very helpful social media platforms for SENCOs, safeguarding is not as easy to access support and decisions often have to be made quickly.

My go-to sources of support and information are:

https://www.nspcc.org.uk/  I’m signed up to a free weekly email called CASPAR that raises awareness of practice, policy and research.  (Use their search button to find CASPAR)

https://www.safeguardinginschools.co.uk/safeguardingbriefing-2/ also offer a weekly emailed digest of safeguarding information.

If you prefer something here and now, then Anne Marie Christian has her thought-provoking blog posts over at: http://annmariechristian.com/blog/

If your staff need to update their safeguarding training then Educare (also a part of Tes) offer a number of generic and specific online training packages and within their resources section you can find safeguarding updates, checklists and news articles to download.  https://www.educare.co.uk/news-and-blogs  Their webinar series first offered during our lockdown is available to watch: https://www.educare.co.uk/ask-the-experts