At St Thomas of Canterbury Catholic Primary School we follow Jesus and believe that everyone should have respect and consideration for themselves and others. Staff and Governors are committed to ensuring that we all have the opportunity to learn and work to the best of our ability in a safe and loving environment.

We have a range of policies in place and available on our website and in school that are designed to achieve this. Policies provide guidance on the acceptable standards of behaviour expected of all staff, governors, children and adult visitors to our school.

St Thomas of Canterbury Catholic Primary School adheres to the definition of safeguarding used in the Children Act 2004 and in the Department for Education and Skills (now DfE) guidance documents Working together to safeguard children and Keeping Children Safe in Education, to promote children’s and our school communities’ welfare.

This can be summarised as:

• Protecting children from maltreatment
• Preventing impairment of children’s health or development
• Ensuring that children growing up with safe and effective care
• Undertaking that role to ensure children have optimum life chances

Our governing body supports the school by complying with the Education Act 2002 (section 175) and we keep up to date with guidance issued by the Secretary of State and LA.

We follow the Department for Education and local authority guidance on safeguarding children and safer recruitment to ensure we provide a safe environment and take action to identify and protect any children or members of our learning community who may be at risk of significant harm. 

We are an Operation Encompass school. Please click on the link below for further information.
Operation Encompass

Through self-review and monitoring we promote safe practice and ensure that adults working with children receive the necessary training for their roles.  We work in partnership with other agencies providing services for children and their families to promote their well-being.

Working together:

At St Thomas of Canterbury Catholic Primary School everyone has a responsibility to ensure children are safeguarded and that priority is given to the Safeguarding Policy and Procedures in all the work we undertake. Staff ensure that children are safeguarded by dealing with issues by providing a non-judgemental, caring and confidential environment for them to work through their problems and difficulties.

The school Designated Safeguarding Lead is Mrs Emilie Poulteney, Headteacher. Mrs Nicola Smith and Miss Louise McAnally, who are our assistant Headteachers, also have Designated Lead training. We work closely with children, families and other agencies to identify factors which may affect individual pupil’s well-being and behaviour in school and at home in order to facilitate the appropriate interventions with other professionals and agencies where necessary to ensure all groups of pupils’ are safe.

We can only be successful in keeping children safe if staff and parents work together to ensure that children are able to voice their concerns. It is important that adults speak to their children about how they can keep safe, teach them how to behave appropriately, set rules and deal with challenging behaviour.

On this page we have a number of resources and links to other websites to help us all to access the appropriate support.

If you have any questions then please don’t hesitate to contact the school. We may be able to help or direct you to get advice about keeping you and your children safe.

Places to go for help and advice

(click on the images)

         E-Safety Portal for Parents and Schools – TLSCP

          Latest updates in safeguarding

          Information for parents

                               Safety portal for families and schools - BCCS 

                               Access to direct support for families.

                               Mental health and emotional wellbeing services in schools

                 E-Safety Portal for Parents and Schools – NSPCC

                 Safeguarding, Online Safety, Exploitation etc

                 Helpful advice and tools for parents and children.

                                                             Help and resources for adults to educate and explain how to stay safe.

           E-Safety Portal for Parents and Schools – by the Childline, CEOP and                   National Crime Agency.

           Supporting materials, activities and links to educate children and adults                 about E-safety.

           Guidance on how to deal with Child Exploitation and how to enhance                                                                      online protection.

          E-Safety Portal for Parents and Schools – by the Police, Child                                   Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) centre.

          Multi-agency service dedicated to tackling the abuse and exploitation of                                                                 children in the real and ‘e’ world.

                                                           Referred to as an online 999

                                                        Advice on a range of issues such as viruses, hacking and dealing with                                                                     bullying online.