Put simply, Safeguarding is:

• Child Protection
• Supporting vulnerable children
• Duty of care, at home, in school and in the community
• Taking action where necessary

There is a clear safeguarding policy at Goodmayes, which supports our school vision statement and ethos of ‘together we can achieve excellence’. All Goodmayes staff understand that for this to happen all children need to feel safe and valued. Through a policy that sets out clear expectations and processes, and high-quality training, staff know what to do and follow safeguarding procedures consistently across the school by:

• Receiving concerns from children, parents, members of staff, visitors and governors
• Listening to children
• Processing information and making decisions on referrals
• Keeping records of concerns and actions
• liaising with support agencies and parents/carers
• Offering or organising support where necessary
• Training colleagues

All concerns are passed through highly trained, designated members of staff that are responsible for safeguarding and child protection across the school.

If you have a concern about the welfare or safety of a child you should contact the Redbridge Emergency Duty Team (EDT) – out of hours service

Tel: 020 8708 5897 (after 5pm and at weekends)

At Goodmayes Primary School we are working in partnership with the Metropolitan Police and Children’s Services to identify and provide appropriate support to pupils who have experienced domestic violence in their household; this scheme is called Operation Encompass.

The purpose of Operation Encompass is to safeguard and support children and young people who have been involved in or witness to a domestic abuse incident. Domestic abuse impacts on children in a number of ways. Children are at increased risk of physical injury during an incident, either by accident or because they attempt to intervene. Even when not directly injured, children are greatly distressed by witnessing the physical and emotional suffering of a parent.

Encompass has been created to highlight this situation. It is the implementation of key partnership working between the police and schools. The aim of sharing information with local schools is to allow ‘Key Adults’ the opportunity of engaging with the child and to provide access to support that allows them to remain in a safe but secure familiar environment.

In order to achieve this, the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub will share police information of all domestic incidents where one of our pupils has been present, with the Designated Safeguarding Lead(s) (DSL). On receipt of any information, the DSL will decide on the appropriate support the child requires, this should be covert dependent on the needs and wishes of the child.  All information sharing and resulting actions will be undertaken in accordance with the Metropolitan Police and MASH Encompass Protocol Data Sharing Agreement. We will record this information and store this information in accordance with the record keeping procedures outlined in our Safeguarding/Child Protection Policy.