Our Safeguarding Statement

ONE Academy Trust is deeply committed to raising standards and achievement for all children regardless of ethnicity, race, disability, gender or religion.

If children are to achieve academically, socially and emotionally to the best of their ability, their basic needs for safety, protection and inclusion must be successfully and confidently addressed. All children have a fundamental right to be protected from harm, attend school and have their specific individual needs met.

Safeguarding and the protection of our children, young people and staff is a key priority for the Trust and that's why we have established our 'Designated Safeguarding Leads' Forum' to specifically monitor all safeguarding areas. The group is made up of our vice-CEO and Designated Safeguarding Leads across the trust. The core function of our DSL Forum is to provide support and guidance; to share and learn practice; and to challenge schools to ensure that children and staff are kept safe, attend, have equal access and their welfare promoted.

Our DSL Forum is also responsible for ensuring that our schools comply with safeguarding legislation. This includes having rigorous recruitment processes for staff and volunteers, induction and mandatory and ongoing training.

We have a range of Trust safeguarding policies and guidance for all of our schools that ensures clear and robust action can be taken when required.

Our safeguarding practice allows our schools to provide a safe place for children, young people and adults to engage with us. We aim to demonstrate that our safeguarding practices are like a golden thread running through our schools, their curriculum and everyday life.

Safeguarding Policy

Safeguarding is paramount and we expect all our employees to undergo a DBS check and attend annual safeguarding training (see individual school websites for policy).

We ask all our staff to act responsibly and ensure that they are using the highest level of protection on social media networking sites. We do not expect staff to have Facebook or any other social media accounts with anyone under the age of 16 and advise all staff to give careful consideration before having accounts with young people under the age of 18. We expect staff to use their professionalism and discretion at all times.

We have several policies and procedures in place that contribute to our safeguarding commitment.  Each of our schools has a Child Protection Policy which is reviewed annually as a minimum to ensure it reflects the requirements of the most recent version of Keeping Children Safe in Education. Our common trust-wide policies can be viewed in the policy section on this website and school policies can be viewed on each school's website and accessed from the policy section.  Printed copies of all our policies can be provided on request.  Also - if you can't see a policy or document you require, please contact Diane Dakin (ddakin@sawley-inf.derbyshire.sch.uk) or your school office and we will make it available if possible. 

Sometimes we may need to share information and work in partnership with other agencies when there are concerns about a child's welfare. We ensure that our concerns about our pupils are discussed with parents/carers first unless we have reason to believe that such a move would be contrary to the child's welfare.

Each school has a Designated Safeguarding Lead (the headteacher) and at least one Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead.  These are fully trained.  Each school also has a link governor with responsibility for safeguarding.  Details of all these posts are available on each school's website. 

The link director for Safeguarding is Dr Pip Dean. 

If you have any cause for concern, you can contact the Designated Safeguarding Lead in school to discuss or the relevant local authority safeguarding contact (see LA websites or the school safeguarding policy for contact details)  Emergency situations should be reported to the police immediately on 999

Please also see our contact sheet attached below. 

Family Liaison Officer

As part of our commitment to the welfare of children and supporting families, we have appointed a Family Liaison Worker - Mrs Claire Kudrick.  Claire supports the families in all our schools.  Please see the attached leaflet for information about the services that Claire can provide and how to make contact.