What is Safeguarding?

Safeguarding is ensuring the safety and welfare of all students in the school. In the broadest sense, safeguarding covers much of what we do day-to-day (e.g. ensuring students enter by student reception, ensuring visitors sign in, requesting that parents report child absences). In a more specific sense though, safeguarding is protecting vulnerable adults or children from abuse or neglect. In some cases, where children are at risk or likely to be at risk of harm, we speak about child protection. This page gives you a brief summary of how we fulfil our obligation to do this, and signposts you to sites and resources that will help you do this in partnership with us.

Our core safeguarding principles are:

• Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility
• The school’s responsibility to safeguard and promote the welfare of children is of paramount importance
• Safer children make more successful learners
• Safeguarding practice is at its best when representatives of the whole-school community of pupils, parents, staff and governors are included in the practice, development and review of the policy. 
• Our current policy can be found here  

We believe strongly in child-centred safeguarding systems, reflecting upon our practice and listening carefully to our partner agencies, parents and carers, colleagues and students to constantly improve how we discharge these duties with sensitivity, professionalism and integrity.

Where a safeguarding concern is identified, the member of staff will alert a member of the safeguarding team and appropriate action is taken. Our Learning Mentor, House staff and Sixth Form support staff work with the safeguarding leads to support students and raise concerns. Regular reviews are carried out where there are particularly complex or significant safeguarding needs. As of September 2020 we have brought in CPOMS, which is an electronic system of recording, reporting and responding to safeguarding concerns.

Training

All of our members of staff are given appropriate training in safeguarding, commensurate with their role in school. We believe that safeguarding training should be drip-fed throughout the year, not just a twilight training session each year and that it should be engaging and relevant, taking account of our specific context.

Where a safeguarding concern is identified, the member of staff will alert a member of the safeguarding team and appropriate action is taken.

Online Safety

As schools increasingly work online, it is essential that children are safeguarded from potentially harmful and inappropriate material. The use of technology has become a significant component of many safeguarding issues. We teach about online safety through our extensive PSHCEE (Personal, Social, Health, Citizenship and Economic Education) curriculum, and have assemblies around the safe of use of phones and technology. 

Students have an IT induction when they arrive and have their own username and password. Students use computers in school and are able to access our school’s MLE (student school site), internet and to send email. The school MLE and email is also accessible from home once they have logged in at school. Internet access and devices using our school WiFi is provided through a filtered system which prevents access to the majority of undesirable material. Please encourage your child to speak to a trusted adult and make the school aware if they ever have any concern about something they have seen online. Our Acceptable Use Policy is provided to every child when they are admitted in to the school.

Mobile Phones and Devices

The use of mobile phones in High Storrs School changed from 17 June 2024. High Storrs School now operates a no mobile phone policy. The heart of this approach is ‘Never used, seen or heard’ on the school site, whilst also reflecting that Sixth Form students have increased independence and responsibility around mobile phone use.

Government guidance for the use of mobile phones states that;

‘Schools should develop a mobile phone policy that prohibits the use of mobile phones and other smart technology with similar functionality to mobile phones (for example the ability to send and/or receive notifications or messages via mobile phone networks or the ability to record audio and/or video) throughout the school day, including during lessons, the time between lessons, breaktimes and lunchtime.’

For Years 7 - 11 this means

• The use of mobile phones and other smart technology is prohibited for all students Y7-Y11 at HSS.

• Any student found with a mobile phone in school will have it confiscated (i.e. looking at it, checking it, using it). The confiscation will be noted as a breach of our behaviour policy. The child will collect their mobile phone from the House Office at the end of the school day. Repeat offenders will have their phones/devices retained until a parent or carer can collect the phone. (NB this is no change from the previous policy)

• Students may have phones in their bags, switched off for the duration of the school day. We do not expect to see them or hear them. This includes time in school before or after the official school day.

• Headphones (in any form) should not be seen at any time in school. If students choose to use headphones when travelling to and from school (mindful of personal safety) they must remove them before they enter the school site. If seen in school, they will be confiscated as above (NB this is no change from the current policy)

For sixth form students

• The use of mobile phones, headphones and other smart technology is acceptable in the closed Sixth Form Study Spaces but prohibited in the rest of the school building for all students Y12-13. The designated phone zones will be clearly signposted and communicated to students.

• For some coursework elements in KS5 lessons there will be a fixed term use of phones planned into the curriculum. In these instances, the fixed period of phone use will be shared with students and families ahead. During these times, students must keep their phones in their bags whilst walking from Sixth Form spaces to their classrooms.

• Any student found with a mobile phone or headphones outside of the designated Sixth Form spaces will have it confiscated (i.e. looking at it, checking it, using it). The confiscation will be noted as a breach of our behaviour policy. The child will collect their mobile phone from the Sixth Form Office at the end of the school day. Repeat offenders will have their phones/devices retained until a parent or carer can collect the phone. (NB this is no change from the previous policy)

• Outside of the designated Sixth Form spaces may have phones in their bags, switched off for the duration of the school day. We do not expect to see them or hear them. This includes time in school before or after the official school day.

• If students choose to use headphones when travelling to and from school (mindful of personal safety) they must remove them before they enter the school site. If seen in school, they will be confiscated as above (NB this is no change from the current policy)

We recognise that mobile phones are part of many children’s lives and also acknowledge that simply banning phones during school hours will not fully address the broader issue of social media's influence on young people. It is important to recognise that students have access to their phones before and after school, as well as during weekends and holidays, which collectively make up the majority of their waking hours.

You may also have agreed some rules for home to help them to stay healthy and happy. One of the best boundaries to have at home, is that devices are left out of bedrooms after a certain time. We would certainly advise that children do not take their devices into their room at night but leave them charging elsewhere to ensure they get a good night’s sleep.