‘Safeguarding is everybody’s responsibility’

Children have a right to be cared for and protected, protecting them is everyone’s responsibility. At Scotton Lingerfield Primary School we are committed to ensuring the welfare and safety of all children in our school. All North Yorkshire schools follow the North Yorkshire Safeguarding Children Boards (NYSCB) procedures.

It is our aim to work in partnership with all to ensure that our children are safe. The school will, in most circumstances, endeavour to discuss all concerns with parents about their child/ren. However, there may be exceptional circumstances when the school will discuss concerns with Social Care and/or Police without parental knowledge (in accordance with Child Protection procedures). The school will, of course, always aim to maintain a positive relationship with all parents.

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.

Any parents who have any concerns regarding a child's safety or well-being should contact one of the school’s Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSLs) listed below.

Nominated Lead Members of Staff (Designated Safeguarding Leads): Debbie Calvert and Beth Hope, Headteachers.

Nominated Deputy Lead Member of Staff (Deputy Safeguarding lead): Yasmin Alvarez, Class 3 Teacher.

Governor Lead: Janet Wright

Contact can be made through the school office on 01423 862209.

Routine safeguarding notices

Playground Safety

A polite health and safety reminder that children, including siblings, should not ride their bikes/scooters on the playground before or after school. We are keen to promote pupils travelling to and from school on their bicycles, and request that they dismount before entering and leaving the school grounds. Thank you for support.

Healthy Schools

We are working hard to improve healthy eating at school and as much as we know treats are OK every now and again, we are on a mission to champion healthy eating choices throughout the day. Fruit is available at Breakfast Club, lunch times & After-school Club daily, as well as provided free to our reception and KS1 (Y1&Y2) children during their snack-time. All classes have a dedicated snack-time, where pupils eat their snack calmly whilst enjoying story time. KS2 children (Y3-Y6) are encouraged to bring a healthy snack every day, so that they can enjoy a snack during this session too.

Allergens in School & Food Safety

We have members of our school who have severe allergies to nuts and peanuts. Please support us to keep our children safe by ensuring these products do not come into school and are not included in your child’s packed lunch or any snacks.

In addition, please can we request that all grapes, blueberries, cherries, sausages and popcorn need to be cut up, or avoided, as they pose a significant choking risk to children.

Hair, Nails & Jewellery

Hair that is shoulder length or longer should be tied up with discreet hair accessories in school colours (this can include house team colours); earrings must be small studs, which will need to be removed for PE. No make-up, nail varnish, false nails or other jewellery should be worn to school, thank you.

Jewellery & PE

Earrings are no longer allowed for PE (North Yorkshire Council and The Association for Physical Education (AfPE)). Schools have a higher duty of care; this is dictated by national guidance and schools must comply. Earrings pose a significant risk to children participating in contact sports at school.

If earrings get caught in another child's clothes or skin, injury can occur both to the child wearing the earrings and the child in contact with the earrings. Contact in PE can also cause damage to the area of the ear behind the earring.

Children are not permitted to wear jewellery, including pierced earrings, during PE lessons and swimming lessons.
Teachers are not allowed to take out or replace children’s earrings if they are unable to do so themselves. It would therefore be helpful if earrings could be taken out at home on PE days.
If a child has recently had their ears pierced and are unable to remove their earrings they may not be able to take part in some elements of the PE lesson, but sessions will be adapted for them to participate.
Staff are not permitted to tape earrings for children - the taping of earrings ‘creates a perception of safety and is not recommended’. There have been several incidents nationally where children’s ears have been injured from earrings being pulled out from under the tape, or the earring stud has pierced the back of the head.
During swimming lessons children wearing earrings must remove them - swimming sessions cannot be adapted and children unable to remove earrings will need to spectate, rather than participate.

Smart Watches

Pupils are not permitted to wear smart watches in school. Please ensure your child does not bring one into school. If a child is wearing one, the class teacher will ask for it to be removed and will be returned to parents at the end of the school day.

Medication & Treatments

A gentle reminder that school cannot administer any non-prescribed medications or treatments unless unavoidable. If your child has been prescribed medication, including creams/sprays a medication form must be completed in the school office and medication/treatments can only be accepted with a named, prescribed sticker.

Pupils can self-administer any prescribed medication/treatments following this process, but this must then be observed and recorded with adult supervision. Children must not carry any medications/treatments independently. A copy of our updated medical policy can be found here: https://burtonleonard.n-yorks.sch.uk/Key-Info/Policies/

Road Safety

Our on-going polite reminder to please park safely when arriving at school throughout the day. Drop-offs are a busy time and we have many children and families using the paths, car park and roads where cars park. Help us to keep all our children safe, thank you.

Safeguarding is embedded throughout our curriculum.

Each year children are taught a series of E-Safety lessons that build their knowledge of how to stay safe online. We also work in collaboration with the local police service who deliver online safety workshops to children and parents. Pupils are responsible for appropriate behaviour on the school's computer network just as they are in the classroom or in the school playground. Communications on the network are often public in nature. General school rules and the Behaviour Policy apply and it is expected that users will comply with the guidelines of this policy.

Children are taught about safe relationships in age appropriate ways across the whole school. We teach the children how to stay safe in a wide range of situations, including: fire safety, water safety, being safe around fireworks, sun safety, road safety. We invite a specialist into school to deliver first aid training to children. Additionally, we work with the NSPCC to ensure that children understand abuse in all its forms and how to recognise signs of abuse, to know that abuse is never a child’s fault and that they have the right to be safe and to ensure that they know where to get help and the sources of help available to them.

Internet/E-Safety

Children are encouraged to use the internet but at all times in a safe way. Parents are asked to give permission for their children to use the internet on entry to the school. Parents, pupils and staff must sign an appropriate usage form to ensure that they understand the risks and sanctions relating to misuse of the system in and beyond the school. If staff know of misuse, either by a teacher, staff member, volunteer or child, the issue must be reported to the Headteacher without delay.

The Headteacher has overall responsibility for internet safety and will have access to all IP addresses, email addresses and passwords provided. The school follows guidelines for Internet use/E-safety from the Local Authority and the North Yorkshire Safeguarding Children's Partnership.

The school will ensure that:

software is in place to minimise access and to highlight any person accessing inappropriate sites or information.
pupils will be encouraged to discuss openly their use of technology and anything which makes them feel uncomfortable. (If this results in child protection concerns, the DSL should be informed immediately).
every effort is made to encourage pupils not to give out their personal details, phone numbers, school, home addresses, computer passwords etc.
pupils adhere to the school policy on mobile phones.
training is provided to pupils, staff and volunteers on e-safety matters where necessary.

Parents are encouraged to look for guidance available on the internet to help in the supervision of their children, the links below may be useful.

https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/online-safety/

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-safety-act-explainer/online-safety-act-explainer

Prevent Duty

As part of Scotton Lingerfield Primary School's ongoing safeguarding and child protection duties we are fully behind the government's Prevent Strategy.

From 1 July 2015 all schools are subject to a duty under section 26 of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, in the exercise of their functions, to have “due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism”. This duty is known as the Prevent Duty for Schools.

At our school we build pupils’ resilience to radicalisation by promoting fundamental British values and enabling our pupils to challenge extremist views.

The statutory guidance refers to the importance of Prevent awareness training to equip staff to identify children at risk of being drawn into terrorism and to challenge extremist ideas. The Home Office has developed a core training product for this purpose – Workshop to Raise Awareness of Prevent (WRAP). All our staff and Governors have completed Prevent training on what Prevent is about and how to deal with any issues they may see inside or outside school.

First Aid

All staff have been trained in Emergency First Aid at Work, relevant staff have also completed a Paediatric First Aid Course.

First aid kits are situated around the school, in every classroom and are also taken out onto the playground at lunchtimes & breaktimes.

When a child is unwell or has suffered an accident in school or on the school grounds, the following steps are followed:

Step 1: A trained first aider is immediately called to provide assistance and advice.
Step 2: The incident/accident is logged in the incident/accident book.
Step 3: The parent is notified of the incident/accident as soon as necessary.
Step 4: The Local Authority Health and Safety Team 'B Safe' are notified of the incident/accident where there is a statutory duty to do so.

Site Security

Scotton Lingerfield Primary School aims to provide a secure school site but recognises that the site is only as secure as the people who use it. Therefore, all people on the site have to adhere to the rules, which govern it. It is recognised that laxity can cause potential problems to safeguarding. Therefore, the school ensures that:

Gates are locked except at the start and end of each day.
Doors are kept closed to prevent intrusion.
Visitors and volunteers only enter through the main entrance and must sign in at the office.
Children are only allowed home with adults/carers with parental responsibility or confirmed permission has been received in advance.
Children are not allowed to leave school alone during school working hours and if collected by an adult, they must be signed out.

Safer Recruitment and Selection

The school pays full regard to current safer recruitment DfE guidance and Keeping Children Safe in Education 2026

We ensure that all appropriate measures are applied in relation to everyone who works in the school who is likely to be perceived by the children as a safe and trustworthy adult, including volunteers and staff employed by contractors.

Safer recruitment practice includes scrutinising applicants, verifying identity and academic or vocational qualifications, obtaining professional references, checking previous employment history and ensuring that a candidate has the health and physical capability for the job. It also includes undertaking interviews and where appropriate, Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks and providing honest and accurate references when individuals move on.

In line with statutory changes, underpinned by regulations, the following will apply:
• a DBS Enhanced Disclosure will be obtained for all new appointments to our school workplace (including volunteers) and renewed inline with North Yorkshire Policy.
• this school is committed to keep an up to date single central record detailing a range of checks carried out on our staff, volunteers and governors.
• all new appointments to our school workforce from overseas or who have lived outside the UK will be subject to additional checks as appropriate.
• our school ensures that supply staff have undergone the necessary checks and will be made aware of this policy.
• identify checks will be carried out on all appointments to our school workforce before the appointment is made, in partnership with the North Yorkshire Local Authority. The following staff have undertaken Safer Recruitment training and one of these staff members will be in attendance at interview for all staff and volunteer appointments: