Please read our Safeguarding Policy.  If you have any Safeguarding concerns please inform Mrs Edward or Mrs Klaassen as a matter of urgency.  Alternately you can contact Sefton CHAT if you feel that a child may be at risk of harm or neglect or FAST for support from our Early Help Team. Safeguarding is a community responsibility and as such we all have a responsibility to keep children safe. 

To contact CHAT ring 0151 934 4013

To contact FAST ring  0151 934 4545

Key DFE and C of E  publications  include

• Keeping children Safe in Education (September 2024)
• Disqualification by Association
• Prevent Strategy
• Working together to Safeguard Children (2023)
• Valuing all God’s Children
• Sexual harassment and violence in schools and colleges

All staff training for safeguarding is up to date and regularly updated in line with Government Guidelines.  Records of staff training are held in the school office. 

Home Office Prevent Training updates for all staff, including Non Teaching Staff  and Governors takes place annually.  This is updated as part of our annual Whole school safeguarding training.

Regular Fire Drills and Lock Down practises take place in line with statutory duties. 

We have 2 members of staff and 2 governors trained in Safer Recruitment. 

Our Chair of Governors and Head Teacher have attended Managing Allegations Training. 

Our Head Teacher Mrs Edward was the Head Teacher Representative on the Sefton Safeguarding Children's Partnership Board.  She is committed not just to safeguarding children at St Philip's but to all of the children in our community.  She is a current member of the of the Education Sub Committee and continues to support the work of the wide partnership.

We are very excited to announce that we are now part of Team Around the School and can offer timely, on site, personalised support from our school based team.  Please talk to any member of staff should you feel that we could help with the normal, tricky family type of thing or that you would like to access some more specialist support from our extended team. 

Safeguarding is not just about children's time in school, everybody that is involved in a child's life including adults that look after them at home have a duty to keep them safe from harm.

Child Safety in the Home

The NIDirect Government Services website has information on "Child Safety in The Home"  which provides information about child safety covering subjects such as:

• Blind cord safety
• Choking
• Fire safety advice
• Guarding children against trips and falls
• Keeping children safe during a flood
• Burns and Scalds
• Poisonous substances
• Leaving children at home alone
• Trampoline Safety

Operation Encompass

Operation Encompass is an early intervention safeguarding partnership between Education and the Police. Set up in 2011, the original aim of Operation Encompass was to ensure schools were informed, before the start of the next school day, if the police had been called out to a child or young person’s house the previous evening due to a domestic incident and to ensure that children are recognised as victims of Domestic Abuse in their own right and receive the support they require.

Since January 2022 Sefton have extended Operation Encompass to all early years education settings including private, voluntary and independent early years settings.

Operation Encompass provides an efficient, confidential network of communication between the police and Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSLs) within schools and early years settings. This ensures that the designated practitioners are there to recognise and offer appropriate support if required, and to ensure the school/setting is a secure, supportive and emotionally connected environment to help reducing the wider effects of abuse.

  Speak out, stay safe    Autumn 1 2024 

The whole school has been thinking about how to keep ourselves safe using the NSPCC resources.  We thought about the different types of abuse , who our safe adults are and what to do if we feel sad or worried about anything. 

Our older children have been thinking about the dangers of sharing images on line and have used the resources about a boy called Alex.  Links have been sent home. 

Our Designated Lead is trained to use the Brook Traffic Light tool which supports our understanding of children's interactions in relation to their peers and others. 

Mr Hooper  is our current Safeguarding Governor and can be contacted via the school office.

Mr Cooper has a child at our school and is warm and approachable member of our team.  As our Chair and a regular attender at out church he lives and breathes our values and our ethos.

Mr Hooper regularly attends in house and external agency training relevant to his safeguarding and other Governing Body roles in our school and also attends  training as part of his professional CPD.   

Prior to September 2024, Mrs Kite was our safeguarding Governor.  Mrs Kite was a probation officer and laid the foundations for our whole school and community safeguarding responsibilities.  

We abide by Prevent Duty Guidelines from the DFE. Concerns regarding radicalisation or Extremism should be referred to Mrs Edward or Mrs Klaassen following our usual procedure, who will then follow Local Authority Guidance if the concern should require referral.

It is our school policy that at least one member of each interview panel has undergone Safer Recruitment Training.  St Philip's is a "SAFE" school. We follow best practice guidelines for advertising, short-listing, reference requests, interviewing, offers of employment and Induction.

We have 2 members of our SLT and 2 of our Governors who have completed Safer Recruitment Training. 

We believe that additional adults in school have a strong influence on children's academic and social progress. We welcome Students, Trainee Teachers, Parent Helpers, Community Volunteers, adults with particular skills or areas of expertise. We ensure that we follow procedures to keep our children safe and that all adults who come into contact with our children have appropriate checks made. Safeguarding the children in our care is our number one priority.

Should you be interested in volunteering you will be required to complete an application process including a risk assessment, request for references and you will require a DBS check .   All this will happen before you are able to work alongside staff and children at our school.