Safeguarding Statement

Pear Tree School nurtures every child to enable them to achieve beyond expectations and develop into confident individuals with a lifelong love of learning, equipped with the skills they need to thrive in a rapidly changing world.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. We believe that all children deserve the best possible experience at school and our aim is to help them be the best that they can be across every area of school life – academic, social, personal, physical and spiritual. To achieve our commitment, we will ensure continuous development and improvement of robust safeguarding processes and procedures that promote a culture of safeguarding amongst our staff and volunteers.

PEAR TREE SCHOOL LEAVERS WILL BE:

Caring, respectful, with good social skills underpinned with honesty and integrity

Imaginative individuals, thinking critically and reflectively

Masters of the basic skills in all areas of learning

Confident, independent and resilient learners for life

Respectful of diversity and value all communities

Secure in their own set of personal values and guiding principles

This is best achieved when we all work together because together we are always stronger. The designated safeguarding lead for Pear Tree is Ruth Hadfield (Headteacher) and the deputy safeguarding lead is Matthew Greasby (Acting Deputy Headteacher).

The nominated governor for safeguarding is Dr Rosemary Jones (Member-Appointed Governor).

The designated lead for looked after children is Ruth Hadfield (Headteacher).

All adults who work in school have a responsibility to read and understand all safeguarding policies. This expectation is displayed as the school’s ‘Safeguarding Notice for Workers and Volunteers’.

All adults are also expected to read the DfE guidance: Keeping Children Safe in Education https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1101454/Keeping_children_safe_in_education_2022.pdf

It should be read alongside statutory guidance:  Working Together to Safeguard Children https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-together-to-safeguard-children--2

Information sharing is vital to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people. A key factor identified in many serious case reviews (SCRs) has been a failure by practitioners to record information, to share it, to understand its significance and then take appropriate action.  Click here to view the DfE guidance: Information Sharing.

Effective working together depends on an open approach and honest relationships between agencies. Where professionals consider that the practice of other professionals is placing children at risk of harm, they must be assertive, act swiftly and ensure that they challenge the relevant professionals in line with the school’s whistleblowing policy.

Schools have a duty to safeguard children from radicalisation and extremism. This is referred to as Prevent.

All adults at Pear Tree are made aware of the NSPCC website:  NSPCC. This anonymous service provides support to employees wishing to raise concerns about how their organisation has handled a child protection concern.

All adults are made aware of CEOPS - Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command which is a National Crime Agency Command enabling staff and parents to make reports about inappropriate use of the internet.