Safeguarding

‘Under the Education Act 2002 (Section 157), schools must make arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.

Parent/carers should know that the law (Children Act 2006) requires all school staff to pass on information which gives rise to a concern about a child’s welfare, including risk from neglect, physical, emotional or sexual abuse. The staff will seek, in general, to discuss any concerns with the parent/carer, and where possible, seek their consent to a referral to Social Care.

This will only be done where such discussion will not place the child at increased risk of significant harm.

Schools will seek advice from Social Care when they have reasonable cause to suspect a child may be suffering or likely to suffer significant harm. Occasionally, concerns are passed on which are later shown to be unfounded. Parents/carers will appreciate that the designated person for child protection was carrying out their responsibilities in accordance with the law and acting in the best interests of all children.’

The School’s designated Safeguarding lead is Mrs C Rifkin, Assistant Head

If you have any concerns, please contact reception who will connect you with the designated member of staff.

Anti-Bullying

Highfields School is very proud of our anti-bullying awards.

The school believes that bullying is wrong.

Although there is not an unusual amount of bullying, the aim of everybody should be to prevent bullying by bringing it out into the open, where it can be dealt with.

Bullying happens when one person makes another person feel unhappy or threatened over a period of time through either mental or physical intimidation. This can include name calling, bag moving, being threatened, extortion, being hit, being left out or isolated, being treated unfairly, being cyber-bullied, using malicious text or MSN messaging / photography.

Every adult in school will be actively involved in preventing bullying. However minor they may feel the incident appears, it will be taken seriously, dealt with straight away and will be recorded in writing.

Students must speak out about any incident they know of and not tolerate bullying amongst themselves.

The school will continually review how it deals with bullying and involve students and their parents/carers in the process.

Help can and will be offered to those who bully in order to change their ways.