SAFEGUARDING AND CHILD PROTECTION STATEMENT
Making safeguarding stronger by working together
Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility across St Lawrence Academies Trust. This
philosophy is underpinned by our policies, practice and our safeguarding culture, which
determines the actions we all take to keep children safe and protect them from harm.
We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all our pupils.
The Trust has a Central Safeguarding Team who ensures the procedures and actions we
take contribute to us all meeting the safeguarding responsibilities of the Trust. These are
to prevent harm, promote well-being and to respond to specific issues and vulnerabilities
when fulfilling the Trust duty of care with children and young adults.
We will give equal priority to keeping all children and young people safe regardless of
their age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, or sexual
orientation. We recognise that some children are additionally vulnerable because of the
impact of discrimination, previous experiences, their level of dependency,
communication needs or other issues.
Our building blocks for safeguarding children are
● Support – Staff empowered by effective, training, knowledge and supervision
● Partnerships – Effective partnerships and professional relationships
● Assurance – Quality assurance and safeguarding audits
● Culture – Professional transparency and curiosity
● Environment – Learning environments that are safe places to be
● Systems – Strong safeguarding, policies and practices
Our Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy has two clear sections: Part A is the Trust
policy for supporting schools to keep children safe .It outlines the role of the Trust as
quality assurance, support and high expectations for safeguarding in all Trust schools.
Part B is a school policy that is personalised to each school and the local authority in
which the school is located. Each school policy is available on individual school websites
and has been developed to ensure compliance with Section 175 of The Education Act
2002, Section 11 of the Children’s Act 2004, Working Together to Safeguard Children 2015
and Keeping Children Safe in Education 2022 (as amended from time to time). All
schools follow the Local Safeguarding Children Board’s interagency policies and
procedures.
Each school in the Trust will have its own trained Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL)
and Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL). Each school’s local governing body is
responsible for the implementation of the Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy for
the school. This is on the agenda and monitored at every full local governing body
meeting. Each local governing body has a Designated Safeguarding Governor who
reports and provides feedback at every full board meeting. The designated Safeguarding
Governor meets termly with the school’s Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) to ensure
compliance.
This also involves completing an annual Safeguarding audit with the Trust Safeguarding
Lead. In addition, the Trust will work with the school to conduct pre-planned additional
audits, depending upon the level of safeguarding needs of the pupils and the priorities
for safeguarding for the school, as identified by the Trust and the school DSL.
The DSL for the school will provide the local governing body with regular written
reports, which are made available to the Trust Boards of Directors via the Trust
Safeguarding and Wellbeing Committee. The DSL must ensure annual Safeguarding
Training and Inductions for new staff, Directors and Governors are completed and
recorded. This ensures that all staff are fully trained and up to date with policies and
procedures.
This policy works in conjunction with other relevant policies which safeguard the
interests and welfare of children e.g. safer recruitment, anti-bullying, whistleblowing,
health and safety, special education needs and disabilities and the single equality
scheme. Policies are reviewed annually or updated if national guidance requires it during
the year. Each school has a responsibility to make sure all staff and volunteers
understand and follow the safeguarding and child protection procedures. All policies will
be available on the schools websites to ensure children, young people and their families
know about the organisation’s safeguarding and child protection policies and what to do
if they have a concern.
The Trust Safeguarding Lead, along with one of the Trust Safeguarding Team and a LGB
safeguarding governor, conducts termly safeguarding reviews in each school.
If you have any safeguarding concerns that relate to a Headteacher of a school in our
Trust, it must be reported immediately to the Chief Executive (CEO) of the Trust.
St Lawrence Academies Trust Safeguarding Team
Mike Adnitt – Trust Designated Safeguarding Lead and Trust CEO
Tel: 01724 747310. [email protected]
Helen West – Trust Designated Safeguarding Lead
Tel: 01724 747310. [email protected]
Jo Everitt – Trust Deputy Safeguarding Lead and Trust Deputy CEO
Tel: 01724 747310
Allie Majer – Trust Deputy Safeguarding Lead.
Tel: 01724 747310
David Esmond – Trust Board Safeguarding Director
[email protected]
