Safeguarding at Netherhall Mead Academy
At Netherhall Mead Academy, the health, safety, and well-being of every child are our top priorities. We listen to our pupils and value their views.
Safeguarding means:
- protecting children from harm,
- supporting their health and development,
- ensuring they grow up in a safe and caring environment, and
- helping every child achieve their best outcomes.
What is Child protection?
Child protection is keeping children safe from harm, abuse, and neglect. It means taking action to support children’s well-being and making sure they feel safe, listened to, and cared for at all times.
Often the phrases ‘Child Protection’ and ‘Safeguarding’ are used synonymously, but they are quite distinct. Safeguarding refers to all children, whilst Child Protection refers distinctly to children at risk of harm.
Many of our pupils at Netherhall Mead Academy use a variety of ways to communicate their wants, needs, preferences but also their emotions. Click here for further information on communication at Netherhall Mead Academy
Netherhall Mead Academy fully recognises the contribution it can make to protect children and support pupils in school. The pupil’s best interest and welfare is of paramount importance. The aim of the school is to safeguard and promote our pupil’s welfare, safety and health by fostering an honest, open, caring and supportive climate and our staff members working with pupils maintain an attitude of ‘it could happen here’ where safeguarding is concerned.
During the school holiday periods or out of school hours, if you have any Safeguarding concerns around a child contact the schools Safeguarding Team on s[email protected] or if you suspect a child or young person is at immediate threat/risk of harm or may already have suffered harm, please contact the police on 999 or Leicester City Council Children’s social care on 0116 4541004
NMA TMET Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy
Advice is available from the NSPCC online – click the link below
What is Early Help?
Early Help means providing help for children, young people and families as soon as problems start to emerge or where it is likely that issues will impact negatively on outcomes for children.
Early Help…
- Is for children of all ages and not just the very young,
- Can be very effective in supporting a child, young person and/or their family to step down from statutory services as well as preventing issues from escalating.
- Is important because there is clear evidence that it results in better outcomes for children.
Early Help in Leicester
The vision in Leicester is to improve children’s lives by working in partnership to raise aspirations, build achievement and protect the most vulnerable.
This is based on the belief that:
- Children, young people and families develop resilience if there are protective factors in place such as: a positive relationship with an adult; good literacy and communication skills; good school attendance; and parents in or actively seeking/ready for work
- Children’s needs are best met when help is offered in a universal setting within a socially mixed group and early on when problems start to emerge
- Children and young people’s needs are best met when addressed in the context of the whole family, meaning that parents/carers/siblings’ needs are addressed with consent as part of a holistic and integrated Early Help response
Early help services should support and strengthen families so that they can thrive.
The Role of Schools
Day to Day Support
Most families, most of the time, can get on with their lives quite happily with little or no outside help. If they need help it is usually provided by universal services, such as schools.
Focused Pastoral Support
All families can have times, however, when difficulties arise, and they either may not recognise it or may not know how to start putting things right. Schools play a role in supporting families to address these difficulties through more focused pastoral support, which might include bringing in support via an external agency.
Early Help Assessment
For those children and families whose needs and circumstances make them more vulnerable, or where schools need the support of other agencies to meet the needs of the family, a coordinated multi-agency approach is usually best. In Leicester this is achieved through undertaking an Early Help Assessment and assigning a Lead Practitioner to work closely with the family to ensure they receive the support they require. Schools should be a key partner in any multi-agency work to support families.
Our Early Help Offer at Netherhall Mead Academy
Our Attendance Offer
- Attendance data monitored, reviewed and actioned by school well-being co-ordinator including liaison with parents as appropriate
- EWO (Educational Welfare Officers) involvement and attendance at relevant meetings
- School office will contact parents/carers on the first day of absence
- Home visits where appropriate
- Involvement of medical professionals if there’s a medical condition affecting attendance
- Support for parents in arranging transport through the EHCP review process
Our Primary Transition Offer
- Use of social stories to support moving from class to class, key stage to key stage and from school to school
- Transition Day(s)
- Pupil passport
- Work with key partners including health and social care
- Visits for prospective families
- Coffee morning for new parents
Our Secondary/Sixth Form Transition Offer
- Connexions PA/social care transitions team to advise and support pupils in their final year and their families including applications to colleges of further education
- Pupil passport
- Social stories as appropriate
- Work with key partners
- Link between educational phases
- Transition Day(s)
- Visits for prospective families
- Coffee morning for new parents
Our Social, Emotional & Mental Health (SEMH) Offer
- Work with key partners including school nurse, CAMHS (Children, Adolescent Mental Health Service), Educational Psychologist, LCI Team, SEMH Team
- Access to regular therapeutic resources including yoga, music and art therapy
- Lunch clubs
- Positive Behaviour Support Programme
- Risk Reduction Plans for individual pupils as required
- Staff training in Autism
- Staff training in mental health in children and young people
- Virtual school team support for LAC
- Whole school holistic approach to mental wellbeing
Our Curriculum Offer
- 1:1 / group work
- Interventions including Play Therapy
- Assemblies
- Key learning areas for all pupils – personal development & exploring and understanding the world
- Careers Education
- Inter-school events
- Subsidised school trips / visits
- Thematic teaching
Our Staying Safe Offer
- Relevant policies and procedures are in place
- Pupils learn about staying safe through; PHSE (Personal Health Social Education), Assemblies
- E-safety through curriculum as appropriate as well as advice for parents
- Risk Reduction plans for individual pupils
- Several trained designated safeguarding leaders who fully understand and implement safeguarding policy and procedure across the school and work with other agencies including social care
- Safeguarding meetings held weekly with regular supervision sessions to ensure best practice
- Home visits
- Parent workshops
- PEP/LAC meetings
- School nurse involvement as appropriate
- Tracking of incidents using CPOMS
- Whole school safeguarding training including Prevent, FGM (Female Genital Mutilation), Forced marriages, CUAB (Children Using Abusive Behaviour)
Our Supporting Families Offer
- School based events for families e.g. Christmas fayre, singalong
- School wellbeing team to support families with health/medical issues
- Support for form completion including financial support and housing
- Home visits
- Parents evenings
- Pastoral support
- Signposting to external agencies and training such as SENDIASS (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Information Advice Support Service)
- Parent group/workshops
- Newsletters to parents
Our Local Community Offer
- Community events – Christingle, café for local care home residents
- School based events for families e.g. Christmas fayre, singalong
- School to school support and collaboration
- Academy Council with local business and community interests and links
- Community Links such as businesses, religious groups
- Work experience for sixth form pupils within the local community
- Supporting charities including Children in Need, Sport/Comic Relief, Macmillan etc.
- Work related learning with local charities
The Curriculum
Our Offer:
- 1:1/ group work
- Interventions
- Assemblies
- Key learning areas for all pupils – personal development & exploring and understanding the world
- Careers Education
- Inter-school events
- Subsidised school trips / visits
- Thematic teaching
- Measurable outcomes:
- Pupils make progress towards their personalised learning priorities
- Increase numbers of pupils accessing opportunities outside of the taught curriculum
Support for families to keep children safe online
Explore together: Explore online together so you can share all the great fun and educational things they can do. Remind them if anything makes them sad or frightened to come and show you.
Be involved: Ask children to use devices in the same room as you, it’s easier to keep and an eye on how they’re using the internet. Ask them to share their interests with you.
Put yourself in control: Use parental controls on your home broadband and internet-connected devices. Talk to your child about keeping safe and not telling people names (or other details) online.
Search safely: If you let your child search online, make sure safe search settings are on for Google and other search engines or use search engines for children such as: https://www.safesearchkids.com/kids-search-engine/
https://swiggle.org.uk/
https://www.kiddle.co/
https://kidinfo.com/
Use passwords: Keep devices out of reach (for younger children) and always set passwords on all your internet-connected devices. This is the easiest way to know when they are using the internet. Passwords also stop additional purchases when they’re playing games or using apps.
Visit e.g. www.internetmatters.org to find out how.
Use age-appropriate sites and apps: Choose safe, fun and educational sites and apps for your child, use video, learning, gaming platforms and services designed with children in mind like YouTube Kids, Sky Kids, BBC iPlayerKids, and Nick Jr
For more advice click –
www.internetmatters.org Top kids TV apps for safer viewing
Set boundaries: Set some rules about how they use internet-connected devices including which apps and sites they can use and how long they can spend on them. Use timers to limit the time on a device or show the time is about to finish. Make sure they know what the next activity will be. Avoid using devices in the hour before bedtime. This is good advice for all of us!
Advice from NSPCC for families with children who have SEND
- Parents are best placed to know their child – This is particularly true for children with SEND. We recommend parents consider the right age and stage for their child based off the level of support they need.
- Make use of tech to support – We know tech can be vital for communication, learning and sensory or emotional regulation for children with special educational needs. It’s important that children continue to receive access that is right for them.
- Explore all relevant strategies – While age-based recommendations may not be appropriate they can instead be approached as a list of practical strategies for parents to explore.
- Use resources tailored to children with SEND – We worked with Ambitious about Autism to create tailored advice and resources for parents to use with their children.
Other useful websites:
Childline Taking control of your online safety | Childline
NSPCC Keeping children safe online | NSPCC
Uk Safer Internet Centre Parents and Carers – UK Safer Internet Centre
CEOP Home safety activities Online Safety Family Activities (thinkuknow.co.uk)
Childnet Parents & carers | Childnet
OPERATION ENCOMPASS
Since 2018 all Leicester Schools have become part of a new safeguarding initiative which aims to improve outcomes for children and families affected by domestic violence and abuse.
The initiative, ‘Operation Encompass’, is run in partnership with Leicester City Council and Leicestershire Police and has been designed to provide early reporting to schools of any domestic abuse incidents that might have an impact on a child at their school.
During the school term, Sarah Naylor, Principal and Designated Safeguarding Lead, will now be informed when any domestic abuse incident has been reported to the police and a pupil of Netherhall Mead Academy was in the household. Details about the incident will NOT be provided.
We will use the information to ensure the school is able to provide appropriate support to our pupils. The information will remain CONFIDENTIAL and will only be shared on a strictly need-to-know basis, for example with the class teacher.
We know domestic abuse in a household can have a big impact on families. If you would like to speak to someone in confidence about domestic abuse, call the Leicester, Leicestershire& Rutland Domestic Abuse Helpline on 0800 802 0028 or visit https://www.leicester.gov.uk/your-community/emergencies-safety-and-crime/domestic-and-sexual-abuse/
If you have any questions or would like to discuss this further, please speak to Sarah Naylor, Principal on 0116 2417258.
Operation Encompass Letter to parents
Local support:
Housing and homelessness support for domestic abuse (leicester.gov.uk)
FreeVA Support – Free from Violence & Abuse
National helplines:
Domestic Violence Assist | DV ASSIST
Home – Women’s Aid (womensaid.org.uk)
Domestic Abuse Helpline for Men | Men’s Advice Line UK (mensadviceline.org.uk)
Building Foundations for Fulfilling Futures