Safeguarding update: supporting child safety online and in our communities
The summer term has, we hope, started well following an enjoyable and relaxing Easter break. Many of you will have been made aware of recent cases where reports of children having been approached by believed strangers and in one example, Police in Plymouth have investigated a possible abduction. While such reports are thankfully rare, they are nonetheless very distressing and alarming among students, their parents and across communities. Please do ensure that children are reminded of how to keep themselves safe while ensuring they are still able to be outside during, what we hope, will be warmer days with longer hours of daylight. Similarly, the recent drama series ‘Adolescent’ has brought attention to what many children are able to access on-line. Again, this presents an opportunity to help both children and their families understand the complex issues of children’s on-line use and how in school behaviours can suggest children are being ostracised from their peers and become vulnerable.
We know from recent S175 responses, schools are declining to utilise the current case resolution protocol. We're delighted that the partnership is seeking yours and the views of other agencies so please do take a moment to complete. Devon SCP would like to seek practitioner views from across our partnership in relation to Conflict, Resolution and Challenge processes. We would appreciate completion of this survey in order for you to share your experiences and suggestions around questioning, challenging, escalating decision making and dealing with professional differences. The survey will close on 27th April 2025, and we appreciate some of you will have already shared your views, but please do make every effort to support the Devon CSP in gathering a range of views to develop this essential aspect of working together to safeguard children.
Finally, we are aware from your feedback in the S175 returns and from speaking with you, how useful these newsletters are. We’re also aware how ‘busy’ they are becoming and so from September, there will move from being half-termly to monthly.
As ever, thank you for all you do!
Devon Education Safeguarding team
The Learning Briefing around adolescent’s safety and care has been published following a Rapid Review completed across January and February 2025.
Rapid Reviews are not published. However, Devon SCP always endeavours to publish and widely share a Learning Briefing. These can be used as a tool for practitioners and managers within their teams as a prompt for discussion about practice and what we can learn about working together more effectively, from local serious incidents.
We’re very grateful for your time and effort in completing this year's S175 safeguarding audit return. We have now begun the process of detailed analysis of these returns from over 350 schools, colleges and Alternative Provision settings. This analysis provides a wealth of insights including how there is so much to celebrate about how very high levels of compliance are evident across education settings within Devon. We have also again asked questions that are linked to gaining a better understanding of more strategic and cultural outcomes – theses were generally those questions within part 2 and are also linked to aspects of the Devon Safeguarding Children Partnership.
For the first time, we have been able to analyse against aspects of education such as ‘Primary’ ‘Secondary’ etc including those schools who are Maintained or Academies. We will therefore be able to not only reflect on ‘all schools’ but also any priorities for those groups of schools for who we now have specific data.
Our next step is to present the findings of our analysis to the Education Advisory Group in mid-May where, working with your colleagues who represent all aspects of education, and our safeguarding partners we will agree our priorities that we will share with you in our final newsletter of the year, just after half-term.
In April, May, and June, we will be running a multi-agency Best Practice Event on child neglect. This in person event is aimed at multi-agency front-line practitioners and team managers who work with children and/or families. Sessions are open to all agencies and are taking place across the county as follows:
Dates and Venues:
Exeter, Mid and East
📅 Monday 28 April 2025
🕘 9am – 3pm
📍 Coaver Club, County Hall, Exeter
North
📅 Monday 19 May 2025 🕘 9am – 3pm
📍 Filleigh Village Hall, Filleigh, North Devon
South
📅 Monday 2 June 2025
🕘 9am – 3pm
📍 The Watermark, Ivybridge
We are pleased to be able to offer an updated online induction to safeguarding - Level 1 safeguarding training online course.
This training has been written specifically to be compliant with the standards required under Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) and will be updated should the content be required to change. This video should be used in conjunction with school induction policy and procedures.
Audience: volunteers, cleaners, catering staff, grounds/site management, visiting contractors, those requiring a reminder of core principles of safeguarding.
The Safe and Healthy Sexual Behaviour Forum is a multi-agency/service community initiative to address the concern of reactive or harmful sexual behaviour for children and young people. The Forum is made up of service leads from across Devon and offers a consultation process for information, advice, and guidance. It uses AIM3 mapping tools to support and inform next steps, along with the wealth of experience and intelligence sharing within the Forum.
The Child Death Overview Panel (CDOP) for the Southwest Peninsula have published their second public report, covering the period from April 2023 – March 2024. The CDOP’s primary function is to review the deaths of all infants, children and young people under the age of 18 years ordinarily resident in our geographical area. A robust review process enables them to identify learning and highlight preventative action that can be taken to reduce avoidable deaths Within the recently published Southwest peninsular report for 2003-24, there are some recommendations that Education colleagues are asked to consider.
- Children understand the risks of aerosol misuse through their PSHE curriculum
- Children have a clear understanding of the risks in using their mobile devices when crossing the road
- Suicide Prevention Training/Mental Health First Aid should be expanded to all staff working within schools including non-teaching staff
Road traffic safety delivered by schools should include discussions around using phones while walking. This is particularly important to those children who are transitioning to walking to school on their own.
Many of you will be starting to plan your INSET days in early September. In previous years, we’ve been delighted to offer training, often referred to as Level 2, though we officially call this Child Protection Refresher for All (CPRA) and are already taking booking. If you are keen to have us deliver a session for you, face to face or virtually, please do get in touch with any of the team who will be happy to get back to you with our availability.
Many of you will be preparing to either take part in meetings to share or receive information when children transition, most commonly from nursey/preschool settings, Primary to Secondary or Secondary to Post-16. KCSiE and more widely Working Together reminds us that the sharing of relevant information is crucial to ensure that for children, where concerns exist, or needs are known, this is an essential part of our role. We also know that this can still present some barriers and, on occasions delay in ensuring that a child’s next setting is well placed to continue to support or challenge ongoing levels of needs and therefore, can represent a time when, if sharing information opportunities are missed, a child can suffer unnecessarily.
KCSiE 2024 – Key Reminders from Paragraphs 121 and 122
Paragraph 121 highlights the importance of transferring child protection files securely and within 5 days of an in-year move, or within the first 5 days of a new term. Files must be sent separately from the main pupil file, and confirmation of receipt should be obtained.
Paragraph 122 encourages DSLs to consider sharing relevant information in advance—particularly where a child has had a social worker, experienced abuse, or is supported through the ‘Channel’ programme—to ensure continuity of support.
We would therefore ask all schools to ensure that they consider the following key messages as they prepare for transitions for children supported in our OMG:
- Where relevant, through meetings held before the child move school, DSLs share with the new school/college’s DSL team details in examples where their is a current or recent safeguarding need for examples such as where their is Early Help plan, CiN, CiC or those children who are Care experienced, CP that could include, working with parents/carers attend forthcoming meetings to support their planned transition and seeking their consent to join relevant meetings
- Please ensure that where children have been known to be Elected Home Educated, this information is shared including, if known, the reasons for becoming EHE and for returning to school
- The ‘physical’ sending, or as is the case for many a file transfer, must take place within 5 working days of the child joining their new school. It is essential, that the ‘sender’ is certain that the child is formally on-roll and that the ‘receiver’ should ‘chase any records that have not been shared after this 5 day period.
Please share this information with male colleagues, parents, grandparents, relatives, local partner agencies and community groups.
The partnership’s previous Let’s Talk events have proved to be hugely popular, however, data shows that only approximately 15% of those attending are male and the team believes strongly that men play a hugely important part in the lives of young people. With that in mind the next series of Let’s Talk has been developed specifically with men in mind. The sessions are FREE and only 20 minutes long. Details of the sessions are below, just click the links to book.
 Let's Talk Anger and Challenging Behaviour
Let's Talk Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing
Let's Talk Healthy Relationships
Let's Talk Drugs and Exploitation
Following on from the tragic circumstances in Southport and the inevitable focus that PSHE curricula will be generating, may we draw your attention to some excellent freely available resources:
Educate Against Hate - Prevent Radicalisation & Extremism
Going Too Far?
Case study 4: responding to extremism concerns in the classroom
You may already be aware of Martyn’s Law named in tribute to Martyn Hett who was killed alongside 21 others in the 2017 Manchester Arena attack. The legislation was introduced to make sure venues across the UK must consider the security of the public and take steps to protect them from harm. Martyn’s Law requires schools to enhance their preparedness for potential threats, particularly terrorism. Key measures include:
- Risk Assessments: Schools must conduct regular assessments to identify and mitigate potential risks.
- Integrated Procedures: Schools should implement a single integrated invacuation and lockdown procedure to secure classroom doors.
- Applicability: The law applies to both primary and secondary schools, ensuring they meet specific safety standards.
- Tiered Approach: Schools will be categorised based on their capacity, which influences the specific requirements they must follow. Venues with a capacity between 200 and 799 will fall under the ‘Standard Tier’ requirements; and Venues with a capacity of more than 800 will fall under the ‘Enhanced Tier’ requirements.
However, schools are exempt from the Enhanced Tier regardless of their capacity. This recognises the existing security measures and safeguarding protocols in place across schools, reducing the need for them to implement the more stringent requirements reserved for larger public spaces.
This means that, even if a school has over 800 pupils, it will still only be required to comply with Standard Tier requirements.
A misconception still prevalent is that schools with large events (sports day, concerts etc.) with over 800 attendees will need to have specialist security procedures. This is not the case as the final version of the legislation specifically excludes educational premise from the scope of so-called “qualifying events”.
In summary, for a school it means that they must appoint a responsible person who will be required to ensure that, so far as is reasonably practicable, appropriate public protection procedures are in place at the school that would reduce the risk of physical harm to individuals in the event that an act of terrorism occurs, at the premises or in the immediate vicinity.
Four types of procedures must be put in place, as follows:
- Evacuation - getting people safely out of the premises.
- Invacuation - bringing people safely into, or to safe parts within, the premises.
- Lockdown - securing the premises by locking doors.
- Communication - alerting people on the premises to danger. Schools must ensure they have systems in place to alert staff and students during an emergency. This could involve the use of public address systems, alarms, or other technology that enables swift communication during a crisis.
As there is an over-riding “as appropriate and reasonably practicable” clause. It is still strongly suggested to schools, without electronic access control, they should have a single integrated invacuation and lockdown procedure, focusing on securing classroom doors.
There is no requirement for schools to undergo specific terrorism training or complete a detailed Standard Terrorism Evaluation. Instead, staff just need to be aware of the procedures in place and receive any necessary instructions or training relevant to their roles. However, there is free CPD available from ProtectUK 
These measures aim to improve safety in educational environments and ensure that schools are better prepared for emergencies.
Guidance and self-assessment templates can be found on government's website
Please look out for the One Minute Guide which will follow and crucially ensure that you have practised your lockdown Ready for Anything drill within your setting.
At recent forums and interactions many of you have raised questions for some of our colleagues within the local authority. We will be releasing resources reflecting the key challenges faced within schools. Our first will be ‘managing low level concerns’. Keep your eyes peeled for some new OMG’s, frequently asked questions, policy guidance and our first, in a series of podcasts, with Devon’s Local Authority Designated Officers.
“I've just taken my level 3 safeguarding training and just wanted to say how fab it was. Genuinely interesting to listen to, great pace but still thorough. I just wanted to pass on my thanks for making the training interesting yet hard hitting. Great job!”
“Absolutely excellent - I have attended lots of SG courses over the years, and this was the best one, I actually listened to every word that was said throughout the whole day and felt quite invigorated!”
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