Safeguarding and Child Protection at

St Gerard’s Catholic Primary School

St Gerard’s Nominated Safeguarding Staff are:

Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL)

Mrs. F Taylor – Deputy Headteacher

Deputy Designated Safeguarding Leads (DDSL)

Mrs J Coe – Executive Headteacher

Mrs. R. Renwick – SENDCo

Mrs L Muttrie-Wijesinghe

Mrs K Volans- PSA

  • All teaching and support staff have had Child Protection Awareness training including Keeping Children Safe in Education.
  • Mrs Coe, Mrs Taylor and at least one member of our Local Management Board are ‘Safer Recruitment’ trained.
  • All teachers and teaching support staff have undertaken Channel General Awareness training with regards to the Prevent Strategy.
  • Miss Brown has been trained as Educational Visits Coordinator
  • Mrs Day is the Health & Safety Coordinator.
  • All teaching and support staff have undertaken a range of medical training including Asthma Awareness, Diabetes and use of an EpiPen for children with allergies
  • We currently have 9 members of staff who have successfully completed ‘First Aid at Work’ or ‘Paediatric First Aid’ training.

If you have any worries or concerns about any of the children connected to our school, please do not hesitate to contact one of the nominated people.

Operation Encompass

Operation Encompass directly connects the police with schools to ensure support for children living with domestic abuse in their homes when there has been a police attended incident of Domestic Abuse.

Rapid provision of support within the school environment means children are better safeguarded against the short-, medium- and long-term effects of domestic abuse.

NSPCC Helpline

The Department for Education has commissioned the NSPCC to launch a new helpline called Report Abuse in Education. The helpline comes after numerous anonymised testimonials of sexual harassment and abuse in schools and colleges were shared to the Everyone’s Invited website.  

The helpline will provide support to:
  • children and young people who want to share current and non-recent experiences of sexual abuse and harassment
  • children and young people who want to talk about being involved in or witnessing any incidents
  • anyone who works or volunteers in a school setting and needs support and guidance
  • adults who have experienced non-recent abuse
  • parents and carers who are concerned about their own child or other children.

Young people and adults can contact Report Abuse in Education on 0800 136 663 or email [email protected]

Please see the policies section on our school website for the latest Child Protection Policy and Procedures

https://stgerards.npcat.org.uk/policies/

eSafety & Safeguarding Resources

Please click here to view our eSafety and safeguarding resources

 

Keeping Children Safe in Education

One of the most important documents used in school is ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’. This document is produced by the Government and sets out the responsibilities of all schools for keeping the children in their care safe. This document can be found on the DFE website under Keeping Children Safe in Education 2025.

 

Social Media

Social media continues to factor in many young people’s lives with more and more apps and platforms emerging for social engagement in the online space. One of the most popular apps with young people currently is TikTok and ,as with all apps, these can be fun creatives spaces they can also pose concerns in relation to safeguarding risks.

Below are some resources to encourage parents/carers to help raise awareness of social media apps to help increase a young person’s safety which you may wish to include in any newsletters or direct communications to parents/carers to help further safeguard young people in respect to their life online

TikTok

TikTok parental controls

Parents Zone video “Getting your teen started on Tik Tok” https://youtu.be/NecNSMxaN5M

What parents need to know about TikTok | Parent Zone