Safeguarding Statement

Pirbright Village Primary School is committed to Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. 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.

We are committed to inspiring, challenging and safeguarding our pupils, enabling them to become:

• Successful learners, who enjoy learning, make progress and achieve.
• Confident individuals who are able to live safe, healthy and fulfilling lives.
• Responsible citizens who make a positive contribution, both socially and economically, to society.

We all have a duty to safeguard our children from all forms of abuse:

• physical abuse;
• sexual abuse;
• emotional abuse; and
• neglect and also from the dangers of being drawn into extremism.
•  

All of these areas of abuse can come from online abuse and we need to safeguard our children from this too. These duties and procedures are set out in our Safeguarding Policies and procedures. Parents and carers are able to read our Policies here on the website and are free to discuss issues surrounding our policies and practice with the Headteacher, Deputy Headteacher or Chair of Governors. Sometimes we may need to share information and work in partnership with other agencies when there are concerns about a child’s welfare.  We will ensure that our concerns about our pupils are discussed with his/her parents/carers first unless we have reason to believe that such a move would be contrary to the child’s welfare.

Our Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSLs) are:

1. Mr Sam Fuller - Class Teacher (DSL)
   DSL@pirbright.surrey.sch.uk
2. Mr Gavin Dutton - Headteacher (Deputy DSL)
   head@pirbright.surrey.sch.uk
3. Mrs Chiara Dow - Deputy Headteacher (Deputy DSL)
   cdow@pirbright.surrey.sch.uk
4. Mrs Erin Hinzman - Home School Link Worker (Deputy DSL) ehinzman@pirbright.surrey.sch.uk 

If you have a concern related to Pirbright Club Class, the Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead to contact is Mrs Jodie Allen (PCC@pirbright.surrey.sch.uk). 

If you are concerned about a child’s welfare, please record your concern, and any observations or conversation heard, and report to one of the DSLs as soon as possible the same day. Do NOT conduct your own investigation. You are able to make your own referrals to Children’s Services.

If your concerns relate to the actions or behaviour of a member of staff (which could suggest that s/he is unsuitable to work with children) then you should report this immediately to the Headteacher (or the Chair of Governors if the concern relates to the Headteacher) – who will consider what action to take.

The Things I Wish My Parents Had Known

The Children’s Commissioner has compiled a useful guide to help parents and carers in discussing online sexual harassment with their children: “The Things I Wish My Parents Had Known” draws together advice from teenagers about how parents should manage tricky conversations around sexual harassment and access to inappropriate content, including pornography. Although this guidance will be most useful to the parents of secondary school-age children, you will see that the overriding message from the young contributors is 'talk early, talk often'. They suggest broaching topics before a child is given a phone or a social media account, which is often around the age of 9 or 10. The children are asking for age‑appropriate conversations that evolve over time in line with their growing maturity; they want their mums and dads to create a safe, judgment‑free space for them to talk about these issues.