Laddingford St Mary's Church of England Primary School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

We have a number of policies and procedures in place that contribute to our safeguarding commitment, including our Child Protection Policy.

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 parents/carers first, unless we have reason to believe that such a move would be contrary to the child's welfare.

We actively support the Government's Prevent Agenda to counter radicalism and extremism. 

Our Designated Safeguarding Lead is Mrs Lucy Clark (Headteacher & Interim SENCo). Our Deputy Designated Safeguarding Leads are Miss Laura Fittal (Assistant Headteacher), Mrs Kelly Featherstone and Mrs Jo Swaite. The Governor with responsibility for safeguarding in our school is Nick Hillman.
 

From November 2019 the school will be taking part in a jointly run operation between Kent Police and all Kent schools, known as Operation Encompass.

Operation Encompass has been set-up to help schools provide support to children who have been present, exposed to or involved in any domestic abuse incident.  We know that children can be significantly physically or emotionally harmed when they witness or are involved, directly or indirectly, with any domestic abuse incident.

When a police officer attends a domestic abuse incident where a child or young person has been in the house or exposed to the abuse, the officer will obtain in full details of the incident. This will include, if the child or young person is of school age, information relating to the school or academy they attend.

The School will be notified (via a dedicated email account) of the name of the pupil that was present at the incident.  No further information about the incident is shared.

At Laddingford we have designated that the designated saftguarding lead and deputies will be able to access these notifications. This will enable us to support the pupil and their family should that be required.

We are always keen to offer the best support possible to all our pupils and we believe this will be extremely beneficial for all those involved.

If you have any concerns or questions, then please contact me and I will be happy to discuss this further.