Shaping Learning For Life
Safeguarding all our children
Child protection
The main child protection and safeguarding policies are available on our policies page (click here) but in these unprecedented times, where some children are learning at home and we have lesson contact with them than normal, we have produced a COVID addendum which should be read in addition to our child protection and safeguarding policies.
Our main safeguarding page on our website can be visited here.
This remains our number 1 priority whether your child is in school or not.
e-Safety
Almost all of our communication and learning for children is via Google Classroom which requires children to log into a protected online ‘school’. Each child has an email address which can only be used to connect with others inside this online school and all apps can only be accessed from within the school. Live lessons (starting January 2021) and a new lockdown mean an updated policy. This should be read in conjunction with our e-safety, acceptable use and social media polices.
Keeping in touch
We are used to touching base with children every day in school and seeing parents, grandparents and other carers on a daily basis. The invaluable chat on the playground, the opportunity to grab the class teacher and pass on small nuggets of information or ask questions is taken away when children are learning at home but that doesn’t mean we don’t do it!
- Children register every morning on our Google Classroom registers. If children aren’t online and registered by 10am, the school office phone, just as we normally would. We allow an extra half hour for home learners as we’d usually do this by 9.30am but we know homes are hectic!
- We hold weekly online assemblies live via zoom (our online protocol is available here)
- In January 2021, we have begun live lessons via Google Meet, our own protected network with inbuilt safeguarding features.
- Our 1:1 reading online sessions for our youngest and most vulnerable learners means we’re touching base with them weekly too.
- When we don’t hear from children online (work isn’t turned in, they don’t turn up to live lessons or assemblies), the teacher or head teacher calls the home.
Vulnerable families
Families are vulnerable for all kinds of reasons. The furlough scheme, cutting wages by 20%, job cuts, families who have both parents as key workers, those with current and pre-existing social worker contact all fit this criteria. Some families chose to keep their children at home, others sent them into school. We have kept in touch with our home learning vulnerable families with home visits, food vouchers and packages and phone calls.
We linked at Christmas with a local community group and several foodbanks to provide much needed hampers with Christmas treats as well as many essentials. WE used the Government Hugg scheme for food vouchers and have this in place again for the January 2021 after parents told us they’d rather receive this than the foodpacks we offered in the summer.
We went one step further in the spring lockdown and cooked for the vulnerable and shielding in the community too. Shawn in the school kitchen not only cooked for our children in school and then cooked a variety of tasty meals for the elderly and vulnerable, collected daily by a local group of volunteers.