Batford Nursery School and Day Care

Safeguarding

At Batford Nursery School and Day Care, we never take for granted the faith you place in us when you entrust your child to our care. We understand it is not always easy to wave your child off to nursery for the first time and we want you to be assured that safeguarding of the children in our care is our highest priority and we aim to care for them the way you look after them yourself at home. Beyond keeping children safe and happy in our setting, wider safeguarding of children is paramount and is our statutory duty.  Child Protection and safeguarding of the children in our care is everyone's responsibility.

Batford Day Care and Nursery is guided by the Government's statutory guidance ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’, (which you can download at the bottom of this page) and complies with the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage. The Nursery has policies and procedures in place to safeguard all children and these are supported by the Hertfordshire Safeguarding Children Partnership.

Recruitment

Our recruitment procedures ensure that all staff are suitable to work with children.

All adults working in the nursery school and day care have undergone an enhanced DBS check.

Training

Staff and governors complete safeguarding training as part of their induction and every three years thereafter; staff have refresher training annually. 

We are not complacent and, where safeguarding is concerned, maintain an attitude of ‘it could happen here’ and ‘it could be happening to this child’.

We are trained to be alert to signs of harm or abuse and will act on any issues brought to our attention. Occasionally, this may mean we have to have uncomfortable conversations with parents in order to establish facts and allay concerns. We do not shirk from this and know that you would not expect us to – at all times, the children and their wellbeing come first.

Staff have undergone Prevent training, to be on guard for signs of radicalisation in children and families, and we will actively challenge extremist views that undermine core British values.

Designated Safeguarding Lead

We have appointed a Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) in both the nursery school and the day care. These are:

There is also a linked governor for Safeguarding on the governing body of the Nursery School: Nicola Parsons.

Procedures

We use an online child protection management system (CPOMS) to record all incidents in school, however small, so that we have a full history and can identify any patterns in behaviour.

We follow the statutory guidance for schools and also the procedures established by the Hertfordshire Safeguarding Children Board.

Curriculum

The school and day care settings have effective arrangements in place to address a range of issues such as child protection, pupil health and safety, bullying (including cyberbullying), provision of first aid and school security.  We also take seriously our duty to protect pupil privacy in accordance with Data Protection legislation.

We use the curriculum to start to develop children’s understanding, awareness and resilience: the curriculum for Personal, Social and Educational Development provides opportunities for children to learn about keeping safe.  Although our children are very young we are aware that web enabled technology and social media is reaching ever younger children and we want our children to know how to be eSafe.

Online safety

We have a comprehensive online safety policy which is designed to help parents and practitioners keep themselves and their children safe on line and to protect digital information, including images, from misuse. Parents are asked to support this policy and to talk to their children about staying safe on line, for example to give children a strategy for what to do if they accidentally click onto something they aren’t sure about. We make parents aware of the Hertfordshire e-safety newsletter on the Herts Grid and mention the policy in our home-school agreement.

To safeguard all our children and uphold pupil privacy, we ask that parents do not use mobile phones or other devices with digital storage, in any way, whilst on the premises.

Herts for Learning issues a termly safety newsletter for parents:

Operation Encompass

• Batford Nursery School is part of Operation Encompass. This is a police and education early intervention safeguarding partnership which supports children and young people who experience Domestic Abuse.
• Operation Encompass means that the police will share information about Domestic Abuse incidents with our school PRIOR to the start of the next school day when they have been called to a domestic incident.
• Our parents are aware that we are an Operation Encompass school.
• The Operation Encompass information is stored in line with all other confidential safeguarding and child protection information.
• The Key Adult, Sarah Hedges, has led training for all school staff and Governors about Operation Encompass, the prevalence of Domestic Abuse and the impact of this abuse on children. We have discussed how we can support our children following the Operation Encompass notification.
• We are aware that we must do nothing that puts the child/ren or the non abusing adult at risk.
• The Safeguarding Governor will report on Operation Encompass in the termly report to Governors. All information is anonymised for these reports.
• The Key Adult uses Operation Encompass Toolkit to ensure that all appropriate actions have been taken by the school.