What does Safeguarding actually mean?

The key statutory guidance ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’ explains what safeguarding is:

Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is defined for the purposes of this guidance as:

• protecting children from maltreatment;
• preventing impairment of children’s health or development;
• ensuring that children grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care;
• taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes.

Put simply, safeguarding is:

• Child protection
• Supporting vulnerable children
• Safe care, at home, in school and in the community
• Taking action

As a school, we adhere strictly to Keeping Children Safe In Education, our Child Protection Policy and Safeguarding Policy.  You can download all of these key documents at the bottom of this page.

We encourage children to 'speak out' if they are ever worried about keeping themselves safe. The children know that all staff are here to listen to them and help them. We have a school 'worry box' that is checked by our ELSA on a daily basis. Every year the NSPCC visit us for an assembly. Most recently this was through a virtual assembly with Ant and Dec.

Online Safety

We have a section on our website that addresses online safety. This is taught to our pupils through a carefully prepared curriculum on a regular and frequent basis. Children are taught the rules around keeping safe online and their adults are given regular newsletters with tips on keeping safe online at home.

Road Safety

We have a team of Junior Road Safety Officers. They help to promote 'Walk to School Week' as well as plan assemblies to teach us all about road safety. In Ropley we only have a 'virtual' pavement on the road leading up to school. We know how important it is to keep to the side of the road and 'Stop, Look and Listen' when we need to cross the road.

Last year we were thrilled that one of our pupils won the Road Safety poster competition that was set by the Hampshire Road Safety team. Our year 6 pupils take part in bikeability and learn how to ride safely on our roads.