Kids are amazing, aren’t they? Their happiness, anger, or even the bullying gives us a message, a warning. In this short piece, we’ll try to navigate some of the key principles of safeguarding children. The aim of this article is to introduce you to the children protection policy at schools in the UK. Let’s start with the definitions first, and we can take a tour into the policy statements and sensitive issues later on.

1. Safeguarding Children: The Children
Protection Policy at Schools
By
Training Express

2. Kids are amazing, aren’t they? Their happiness, anger, or even the bullying gives us a message, a
warning. In this short piece, we’ll try to navigate some of the key principles of safeguarding children. The
aim of this article is to introduce you to the children protection policy at schools in the UK.
Let’s start with the definitions first, and we can take a tour into the policy statements and sensitive issues
later on.
What is safeguarding?
Safeguarding describes the act of ensuring the safety of children and vulnerable adults. The aim of
safeguarding is to save any child or elderly people from:
● Negligence
● Physical, emotional, and sexual abuse
● Fraud and financial abuse
What is the purpose of child safeguarding?
According to NSPCC, safeguarding aims at —
● Protecting your children from maltreatment and abuse
● Preventing harm to children’s health or development prevent
● Making sure that your children receive safe and helpful care
● Laying out fruitful plans to help all children and young people with possible outcomes
In short, safeguarding relates to the actions surrounding the welfare of children and protecting them from
harm. Child protection is an essential element of the safeguarding process. Here, we are talking about
responding to the concerns of any children within the UK education and welfare system.

3. Who is a child?
In general, any person below 18 is a child in the UK. You know what it means, right? Yes, you are a child
if you haven’t celebrated your 18th birthday yet. Every unborn child also enjoys the privilege of being
children. In fact, social workers give support to unborn children in every possible way.
The aim of the UK legislation is to keep children —
● Healthy
● Safe
● Happy
● Positive
● Solvent
The six safeguarding principle

4. The six principles apply to adults and children in a similar way. Also, the principles help us to reduce risks
of harm from abuse and exploitation. The process includes raising awareness and supporting people.
The six principles are:
Empowerment
You need to support and encourage children to build their confidence. In short, empowerment allows the
children to make choices and control their decisions.
Prevention
You should take action to prevent any harm to the kids. It is the primary aim of safeguarding children.
How do you do so?
You can raise awareness and train your staff. Besides, you can showcase the preventive measures, and
encourage everyone to seek help.
Protection
The main principle of child safeguarding is protection. We must ensure the representation of the children
in need. And, we must provide support.
You have to start with preventive measures to fight abuse. Besides, you are responsible for providing
support for anyone at risk.

5. Proportionality
Proportionate steps are crucial in child safeguarding practices. Also, you need to make sure that your
response is the least interfering matter in the issue.
Partnerships
Your local community can help you a lot to prevent and detect abuses. So, you need to form partnerships
with your community.
Partnerships encourage us to move on as a community towards a common goal.
Accountability
Transparency and accountability ensure the smooth progress of ensuring safeguarding.
Everyone in an academic setting deals with safeguarding vulnerable children. Thereby, all the concerned
people must remain accountable as individuals, services, and organizations.

6. Child protection in the UK: Essential knowledge for school
and college staffs
Everyone in the staff team must know what the requirements of child safeguarding are. At first, the school
authority must inform the staff about child protection policies. And, the school must do so during the staff
induction. The briefing should include:
● Child protection policy;
● Behaviour policy;
● Staff behaviour policy (also known as code of conduct);
● Role of the designated safeguarding lead.
Type of actions if there is a concern for safeguarding a child

7. Download PDF for Printing

8. Single Assessment Process
The single assessment demands a lot of details. This type of assessment addresses the requirements of
a child who is in a potential risk of abuse. Also, the process determines the necessities of a child and
designs frameworks for the support system.
What happens after the assessment?
Our safeguarding children’s course intends to safeguard children in your school and help your school to
approach safeguarding inspection properly.
With the help of our safeguarding children course, you’ll be able to —
● A protection plan is in place
● The urgency of the protection plan decided
● Help your children to recognize healthy and safe relationships
● Encourage any child to talk to a trusted adult about any harassment
● Design a blueprint to approach safeguarding and child protection
● Make the school staffs aware of the signs and symptoms of abuse and negligence
● Train the school staffs with necessary safeguarding plans
Child Protection Policies in the UK: Definitions of Abuse
According to the statutory government guidance, abuse and neglect are forms of maltreatment. Children
and young people may be abused in a family or in an institutional or community setting by those known to
them or, more rarely, by a stranger.
Someone may abuse or neglect a child causing harm or failing to prevent the child from harm. This type
of abuse or negligence can happen to young people in a community setting or an institutional setting.
Besides, the people responsible for these types of acts are acquaintances, or only sometimes, strangers.

9. Physical abuse
Physical abuse may include hitting, throwing, shaking, drowning, poisoning, burning or scalding,
suffocating, or causing bodily harm to a child or young person.
Emotional abuse
Emotional abuse lasts for longer periods. We can name it emotional maltreatment. The maltreatment can
occur even in a family setting. Now, what type of scenario are we looking at? Emotional abuse usually
involves the following circumstances:
● Treating children as worthless or unloved, inadequate.
● Valuing a child as a mere commodity.
● Setting inappropriate goals for the age of a child.
● Overwhelming a child being overprotective or dominating.
● Barring the natural social interaction of young people.
● A child getting exposed the ill-treatment upon others in any setting
● Exploiting a child or forcing a child to be corrupt
● Intense bullying that makes a child scared or endangered
Sexual Abuse
Sexual abuse refers to the act of forcing or alluring a child or young person into sexual activities. The
child could be aware of the fact or not. These types of sexual acts can be penetrative or non-penetrative
in nature.
If one of the partners is under 16, penetrative sex is illegal by the provision. However, when a child is
under the age of 13, the sexual act is defined as rape under Section 5 Sexual Offences Act 2003.
Sexual abuse also includes the production of pornographic materials or provoking children to behave in
inappropriate manners.

10. Safeguarding policy: Negligence
Neglect results from the failure of meeting the basic physical or psychological needs. Negligence can
lead to serious physical or mental disability. Pregnancy or maternal substance use might relate to cases
of negligence.
Child safeguarding is a sensitive and critical matter in schools. With the proper training and
well-calculated safeguarding policy, your child can have a safer future. The roles and responsibilities of
the teaching staff and administrators can be explored with our child safeguarding course. Time to take
action for safeguarding assessments and policies.