Turnham Academy is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
| The Designated Safeguarding Lead is | Victoria Hepburn (Assistant Head Teacher) |
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| In their absence, the Deputy Designated Safeguarding Leads are | Frank Harrowell (Head of School)
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| The Nominated Governor for Safeguarding Children is | TBC |
Turnham Academy is committed to ensuring the welfare and safety of all our children in school. We believe that pupils have a right to learn in a supportive, caring and safe environment which includes the right to protection from all types of abuse; where staff are vigilant for signs of any pupil in distress and are confident about applying the/our safeguarding processes to avert and alleviate any such problems.
Safeguarding is about ensuring that everyone is safe from harm – safe from bullying, safe from people who could abuse, safe from discrimination or harassment – and that we all feel safe in our environment.
To this end, we are committed to educating our children and parents about the potential risks they may be vulnerable to, such as extremism, domestic violence, sexting, cyber-bullying and safer use of the internet.
Sometimes we may need to share information and work in partnership with other agencies when there are concerns about a child’s welfare. We will ensure that our concerns about our pupils are discussed with his/her parents/carers first unless we have reason to believe that such a move would be contrary to the child’s welfare
If you are ever concerned about the safety or well-being of someone at our school, please talk to one of the school’s Designated Safeguarding Officers.
If you are concerned that a member of staff, a Governor or potential Governor may have links to extremism or that child might be at risk of extremism, or if you have any other concern about extremism at Turnham Academy, please contact the Department for Education’s helpline on counter.extremism@education.gsi.gov.uk or 020 7340 7264. Parents/carers can also find some more information on the Educate Against Hate website by the DfE.
All staff have received Child Protection and Safeguarding training, which included themes such as Keeping Safe in Education 2023, FGM, The Prevent Agenda in September 2023.
As part of Turnham Academy’s commitment to safeguarding and child protection we fully support the government’s Prevent Strategy. As part of our annual Safeguarding trainings, we ensure that members of our team are aware of governmental priorities.
The Prevent strategy is a government strategy designed to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. As described in official documents published by Her Majesty’s Government, the Prevent Strategy:
If you are concerned that a member of staff, a Governor or potential Governor may have links to extremism or that child might be at risk of extremism, or if you have any other concern about extremism at Turnham Academy, please contact the Department for Education’s helpline on counter.extremism@education.gsi.gov.uk or 020 7340 7264. Parents/carers can also find some more information on the Educate Against Hate website by the DfE.
The best way to help your child to be safe when using the internet is to talk to them and make sure they understand a few simple rules. Below you can find an online safety leaflet and links to some useful websites.
Internet Matters provides tips on protecting children from online grooming, cyberbullying, privacy and identity theft and inappropriate content. Internet Matters is a not-for profit organisation set up by BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media.
https://www.internetmatters.org/
Thinkuknow is a website created by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) centre.
CEOP (The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre) delivers a multi-agency service dedicated to tackling the abuse and exploitation of children in the real and ‘e’ world. Young people and parents can get advice on a range of issues such as viruses, hacking and dealing with bullying online.