Keeping children safe (Safeguarding)
La Fontaine Academy is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
If you have any concerns around the safeguarding of your child, or any other child or young person, please contact the School Safeguarding Team:
safeguarding@lafontaineacademy.org
What is safeguarding?
Safeguarding and Child Protection relates to the protection of children from maltreatment, preventing impairment of health and/or development, ensuring that children grow up in the provision of safe and effective care and optimising children’s life chances to enter adulthood successfully.
Everyone who works with children and young people has a responsibility for safeguarding and protecting children and young people from harm.
Our approach to safeguarding
We advocate early help processes and, where possible, we will identify any difficulties or concerns early in order to act preventatively. We will always provide support and advice for families and parents/carers, acting in the best interests of the child at all times. We work closely with outside agencies to ensure support for students and families.
Staff report any causes for concern to the School Safeguarding Team (DSLs and DDSLs). Any concerns will be shared, where appropriate, with parents/carers as early as possible, as more often than not there are extremely reasonable explanations for the concern. Concerns may range from children being visibly upset to students ‘disclosing’ concerns. Should a student disclosure be of a more serious nature then the Safeguarding Team are required to contact the Bromley Children and Families Hub (formerly MASH) for advice on any actions, including the involvement of external agencies.
Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility, therefore all staff (including volunteers) at La Fontaine Academy are trained and have regular refresher training in order to remain vigilant when protecting our children and young people.
All concerns are passed through the School Safeguarding Team who are senior members of staff that have been trained as Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSLs) and Deputy Designated Safeguarding Leads (DDSLs).
It is important that children feel safe. Through assemblies, circle times and our PSHE curriculum, we reinforce the importance of personal safety and healthy relationships. We ensure that children are clear on who their 'trusted adults' are in school, as well as the School Safeguarding Team, so that they are confident in knowing what steps to take if they do not feel safe at any time.
We have a leaflet designed in child-friendly language to explain what if someone has a safeguarding concern:
Click on the picture to open the leaflet.
We have also delivered assemblies to children to teach them about safeguarding and how we keep them safe at school:
Operation Encompass is a police and education early information safeguarding partnership enabling schools to offer immediate support to children experiencing domestic abuse.
Operation Encompass ensures that there is a simple telephone call or notification to a school’s trained Designated Safeguarding Lead /Officer (known as key Adult) prior to the start of the next school day after an incident of police attended domestic abuse where there are children related to either of the adult parties involved.
Information is shared with a school’s Key Adult (Designated Safeguarding Lead or Officer) prior to the start of the next school day after officers have attended a domestic abuse incident. This sharing of information enables appropriate support to be given, dependent upon the needs and wishes of the child.
Children are negatively impacted by experiencing domestic abuse and without early intervention and support this negative impact can last through a child’s life course. Domestic abuse can impact upon social, psychological, physical, emotional and behavioural outcomes with an often negative impact upon a child’s academic success. Experiencing domestic abuse has been identified as an Adverse Childhood Experience.
Operation Encompass aims, by directly connecting police and schools, to secure better outcomes for children, to enable schools to better understand the impact living with domestic abuse has upon children, to help schools to better understand a child’s lived experience and to therefore be able to support and nurture each child, making a child’s day better and giving them a better tomorrow.
The aim is to have Operation Encompass in every force, in every school, for every child no matter where they live. It is simply every child’s right.
We have written to all families about our involvement with Operation Encompass, please click the link below to see the letter:
Operation Encompass letter to families
For further information on Operation Encompass, please click on the picture below:
Part of our safeguarding duty is to implement the Prevent, which requires specified authorities such as education, health, local authorities, police and criminal justice agencies (prisons and probation) to help prevent the risk of people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. Information for families can be found here:
If you would like to learn more about keeping children safe - both at school and at home - the following organisations have helpful information:
If you have concerns about online safety, the following organisations have useful information:
NSPCC: Keeping children safe online
If there is content on the internet that you think should be reported/removed, the following organisations can support: