Safeguarding Children in Education:
Safeguarding Audit Toolkit for Schools and Colleges in Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster 2014/15
Part 1: Guidance for Completing the Safeguarding Audit
A. Why should schools and colleges evaluate their safeguarding arrangements?
All educational establishments have a legal responsibility to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people.
· Section 175 of the Education Act 2002 requires governing bodies of maintained schools and further education colleges to make arrangements to ensure that their functions are carried out with a view to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children.
· Section 157 of the Education Act 2002 requires proprietors of independent schools (including academies, Free Schools and city technology colleges) to have arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.
· The Non-Maintained Special Schools Regulations 1999 require governing bodies of non-maintained special schools to make arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.
Regular monitoring is essential to ensure that the educational establishment has strong policies, procedures and mechanisms in place to safeguard children and young people; it will also help the establishment to prepare for safeguarding aspects of inspections by Ofsted or other relevant inspectorates.
B. About this audit toolkit
The purpose of the audit toolkit is to provide educational establishments with some practical advice on how to ensure that all children are safe and provide evidence that safeguarding is a priority within their establishment. It has been developed to align it with the following statutory guidance and inspection frameworks:
· Department for Education Statutory Guidance for Schools and colleges : Keeping Safe in Education April 2014
· Ofsted Framework for School Inspection (January 2014) and the School Inspection Handbook (January 2014)
· Ofsted Framework for Inspecting Non-Association Independent Schools (January 2014)
· Ofsted Common Inspection Framework for Further Education and Skills and the Handbook for the Inspection of Further Education and Skills (January 2014)
The audit tool has also been informed by results of inspections locally and findings from serious case reviews nationally and locally.
The audit toolkit includes the following parts:
· Part 1: Guidance for completing the section 11 audit tool
· Part 2: Safeguarding audit tool
· Part 3: Safeguarding action plan
Definition: In this toolkit, a child is defined as anyone who has not yet reached their 18th birthday. ‘Children’, therefore, means children and young people throughout the document.
C. How to use the audit tool
Although the audit toolkit does not provide a comprehensive list of issues and evidence, it has been designed to help you think about what you have in place and what you may wish to put in place in the future.
· The educational establishment’s safeguarding arrangements should be audited every year. The safeguarding lead and the head teacher, principal or proprietor should work together to complete the audit and compile an action plan. It is recommended that the chair of the governing body or the nominated child protection governor also contributes to this.
· Once the audit is completed, it is essential that it is checked and signed off by the chair of the governing body or trustees.
· The action plan should be reviewed, on an ongoing basis ideally, and at least half-way through the year, to ensure that actions are completed within timescales and achieve a green rating; further actions should be agreed for the next audit to ensure continuing improvement.
· The audit and reviews of the action plan should be formally discussed and recorded within management and governing body meetings and then shared appropriately. The completed audit could be used not only as inspection evidence regarding how your establishment is currently meeting its safeguarding requirements, but also importantly to detail any actions you are planning, with timescales, to improve outcomes for children.
D. RAG rating and action planning
The traffic light system relates to how the educational establishment assesses itself against achieving a particular standard. If your establishment assesses itself as red or amber, areas for development need to be recorded along with the person responsible for completing the action and a timescale in which to do so on the separate action plan (a template action plan is provided in Part 3).
RED / Indicates that processes are lacking and need to be developed as a matter of urgency in order to meet minimum requirements for a specific standard.AMBER / Indicates that processes are in place but they need to be reviewed or further improved for a specific standard.
GREEN / Indicates that the establishment meets the standard fully with all processes in place and up to date, at least to the required minimum.
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Safeguarding Children in Education:
Part 2: Safeguarding Audit Tool for Schools and Colleges in Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster 2014/15
Name of school/college / Date of auditPerson completing the audit / Job title / Signature
Person completing the audit / Job title / Signature
STATUTORY TRAINING REQUIREMENTS
Name of designated safeguarding lead / Job title / Date of last safeguarding training
Name of deputy safeguarding lead / Job title / Date of last safeguarding training
Name of the nominated child protection governor / Date of last safeguarding training
Date of last safeguarding training for all staff working with children (refresher training every three years)
CHAIR OF THE GOVERNING BODY OR TRUSTEES OR THE PROPRIETOR
This audit has been accepted by [insert name and position (chair of the governing body/ chair of trustees/proprietor)] who will be responsible for ensuring that the recommendations and actions arising from the audit are implemented and reviewed.
Name / Date / Signature
RETURNING THE AUDIT TOOL AND ACTION PLAN
As part of the audit process, Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB) will select a sample of schools and colleges to test and quality assure audit returns.
All schools and colleges are requested to return their completed audit tool and action plan by email
· The deadline for returning the audit is
· The email address to return the audit is
· Evidence for meeting each standard should be provided. Documents should be embedded, or links provided to the establishment’s website where documents can be found, in the appropriate section on the audit tool.
If you have questions about the audit tool, please contact Hilary Shaw, Tri Borough Safeguarding/Child Protection Schools and Education
Safeguarding standard / Evidence you may have / Notes / RAG rating / Action (enter details of action to be taken to meet the standard and transfer to the Action Plan (Part 3)) /
1) The educational establishment has robust governance and lines of responsibility to ensure that practice meets required standards; leaders and managers are clear about their responsibilities and the steps they are taking to develop good practice beyond the statutory minimum. /
1.1 / A member of the establishment’s governing body champions child protection issues, liaises with the senior leadership team and provides information and reports to the governing body. / · The establishment has a nominated governor or trustee for child protection issues.
· The nominated governor is kept up to date about policies, procedures and individual issues, if appropriate.
· Minutes of meetings of the governing body and subcommittees where child protection issues are discussed. / · Neither the governing body nor individual governors have a role in dealing with individual cases (except when exercising their disciplinary functions in relation to allegations against a member of staff); however, it is helpful to have a nominated governor.
1.2 / A senior member of the establishment’s leadership team is designated to take lead responsibility for dealing with child protection issues, providing advice and support to other staff, liaising with the local authority, and for working with other agencies. / · Evidence that the safeguarding lead’s job description clearly defines their roles and responsibilities in relation to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people.
· Evidence that time is made available for the designated lead to undertake the duties required of the role. / · The designated person should have the status and authority within the management structure to be able to carry out the duties of the post, including committing resources to child protection matters, and where appropriate directing other staff.
· In schools, the safeguarding lead is the Designated Child Protection Teacher.
1.3 / A deputy is available to act in the safeguarding lead’s absence. / · Evidence that the establishment has a deputy with appropriate seniority. / · In large establishments, or those with a large number of child protection concerns, it may be necessary to have a number of deputies to deal with the workload.
1.4 / Staff members are aware of the line of accountability and who the designated lead for safeguarding is within the establishment. / · The establishment should have a clear protocol in place that informs staff who has responsibility for child protection and how to contact them.
· Minutes of meetings where information has been provided and discussed. / · The protocol should be mentioned in the staff handbook and provided to new staff in their induction pack.
· It should also be displayed in the staff room.
1.5 / The safeguarding lead is held to account through line management and supervision or appraisal by their manager (if the safeguarding lead is the head teacher or principal, this may be the chair of governors). / · The work of the safeguarding lead is scrutinised and challenged effectively – evidenced through minutes or notes of regular supervision or appraisal
· Evidence that further support or training is provided, as necessary / · It is important that supervision and management processes are sufficiently challenging to ensure the establishment’s safeguarding procedures are robust.
1.6 / Systems are in place to ensure the establishment monitors and quality assures implementation and compliance of child protection and safeguarding requirements and procedures. / · Evidence of quality assurance activities by the safeguarding lead, for example audits of children’s child protection files or records and training.
· Evidence of systematic review of the action plan from the previous Safeguarding Children in Education Audit.
· Evidence that action is taken without delay to improve remedy any deficiencies identified. / · The safeguarding lead should audit files at least annually to ensure staff members are aware of how to recognise concerns and what to do to report concerns.
· The Safeguarding Children in Education Audit (this audit) should be conducted annually and the resulting action plan should be reviewed regularly, eg identified recommendations and actions could be incorporated into the establishment’s annual Improvement Plan.
1.7 / Any deficiencies or weaknesses in child protection arrangements brought to the attention of the governing body and senior managers are remedied without delay. / · Evidence of systematic challenge by governors – documented in minutes of meetings.
· Evidence of challenge by the senior leadership - documented in minutes of meetings.
· The policy review cycle is implemented within set timescales.
· Surveys/questionnaires for children, parents and staff members. / Examples of this may be:
· Senior management, governor and staff meeting minutes
· Parental feedback you collect
· Policy review cycle agreed by the governing body
Safeguarding standard / Evidence you may have / Notes / RAG rating / Action (enter details of action to be taken to meet the standard and transfer to the Action Plan (Part 3)) /
2) The educational establishment has effective policies and procedures in place to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in accordance with statutory guidance, including those relating to behaviour, bullying, health and safety, harassment and discrimination. /
2.1 / Leaders, managers, governors and proprietors take account of statutory guidance which set out their responsibilities to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. / · Awareness of statutory guidance Working Together to Safeguard Children (2013).
· Access to DfE Statutory Guidance: Keeping Children Safe in Education (2014).
· Minutes of meetings where the documents have been discussed, including at full governor and sub-committee meetings. / · Working Together to Safeguard Children (2013) can be found on the Department for Education website at
http://www.education.gov.uk/
aboutdfe/statutory/g00213160/
working-together-to-safeguard-children
· DfE Statutory Guidance :Keeping Children Safe in Education (2014).can be found on the Department for Education website at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/keeping-children-safe-in-education
2.2 / The establishment has a child protection policy and procedures in place and the policy is made available to parents on request. / • The policy and procedures are in place and signed off by governors.
· The policy and procedures are reviewed annually and accessible to staff.
· The policy is accessible to children and parents; for example, it is available on the establishment’s website.
· Parents are informed through newsletters and the annual admissions document. / · A model child protection policy for schools is available through contacting
2.3 / The educational establishment has an anti-bullying policy that is reviewed annually. / · The policy is in place and signed off by governors.
· Accurate records should be kept of bullying-related incidents and actions taken to deal with these.
· In schools, anti-bullying should be integrated into a high quality PSHE education programme
· Anti-bullying initiatives and promotional and awareness raising activities should be systematically captured in order to provide evidence of these pro-active methods to reduce bullying.
· The establishment’s Improvement Plan should refer to actions to eradicate bullying and signed off by governors. / · All staff should be competent and feel confident about implementing the protocol for managing incidences of bullying.
· There should be a consistency of approach throughout the establishment for managing incidents of bullying.
2.4 / The educational establishment has a written e-safety policy and procedures and a social media policy that are reviewed annually. / · E-safety policy and acceptable use policies (one for staff and one for children/young people), reviewed annually, and signed off by governors.