Child Protection
As a school, we follow our safeguarding and child protection policy (see PDF below) in order to follow our statutory duties. All staff must report any concerns they have about a child and not see these as insignificant. Staff will not assume a colleague or another professional will take action and share the concern. On occasions, a referral to Children’s Services is justified by a single incident such as an injury or disclosure of abuse. More often however, concerns accumulate over a period of time and are evidenced by building up a picture over time; this is particularly true in cases of emotional abuse and neglect. In these circumstances, staff record and pass on concerns in accordance with this policy to allow the Designated Safeguarding Lead to build up a picture and access support for the child at the earliest opportunity.
All concerns, discussions and decisions made, and the reasons for those decisions will be recorded in writing on the school’s CPOMS system ( this is an online system to monitor safeguarding, well-being and pastoral issues.)
Early Help
Early Help is an organised early intervention to provide support around the child and their family as soon as a problem emerges and at any point in a child’s life. If Early Help is appropriate, our DSLs will work with other agencies including Early Help staff in setting up an inter-agency assessment, as appropriate.
Staff may be required to support other agencies and professionals in an Early Help assessment and, in some cases, where education is the fundamental factor, act as the lead practitioner. Early help assessments will be kept under review and referred to Children’s Social Care for assessment if the child’s situation does not appear to be improving or is getting worse.
More detailed information can be found here North Tyneside Early Help information
Online Safety
This is such a huge part of pupil life so we have another tab under key information dedicated to online safety. This is also where you will find our online safety policy.
Operation Encompass
We are an ‘Operation Encompass’ school Operation Encompass operates in all police forces across England. It helps police and schools work together to provide emotional and practical help to children. The system ensures that when police are called to an incident of domestic abuse, where there are children in the household who have experienced the domestic incident, the police should inform the key adult (usually the designated safeguarding lead) in school before the child or children arrive at school the following day. This ensures that the school has up to date relevant information about the child’s circumstances and can enable immediate support to be put in place, according to the child’s needs.
Prevent
Children are vulnerable to extremist ideology and radicalisation. Similar to protecting children from other forms of harms and abuse, protecting children from this risk is part of our safeguarding approach.
The impact of the pandemic, social isolation and a rise in hateful extremism online is creating a situation which is making more young people vulnerable to radicalisation and other forms of grooming.
Prevent is a preventative programme, delivered locally by teachers, healthcare practitioners, social workers, the police, charities, and religious leaders. It places protection around people vulnerable to radicalisation, stopping them from being drawn into terrorism – regardless of the ideology.
Parents, friends and families can also get specialist support to stop their loved ones being drawn into harmful activities or groups, with the launch of ACT Early – a new dedicated safeguarding website and advice line from the specialists at Counter Terrorism Policing (CTP).
If you are worried that someone you know is being radicalised, visit http://www.actearly.uk/
For help and advice visit www.actearly.uk, or call the national Police Prevent Advice Line on 0800 011 3764, in confidence, and specially trained Prevent officers will listen carefully to your concerns.
Attendance
We know good attendance supports pupils to feel happy and safe and that lack of attendance could be linked to a safeguarding issue. Please click on this attendance link to take you to our attendance tab and our policy and procedure.
Behaviour
We are proud of the high expectations we have of behaviour at Appletree. Our whole school approach to understanding and approaching behaviour and supporting children to thrive ensures school remains a happy and safe learning community. Please read our Behaviour policy (below)