At St Teresa’s, the health, safety and well-being of every child are our paramount concern. We listen to our pupils and take seriously what they tell us. Our aim is for children to enjoy their time as pupils in this school. We want to work in partnership with you to help your child achieve their full potential and make a positive contribution.
 
To promote a safe environment for pupils, our selection and recruitment policy includes all checks on staff and regular volunteers’ suitability, including Disclosure and Barring Service checks, in accordance with current legislation.
 
In accordance with our responsibilities under section 175/157 of the Education Act 2002 and “Keeping Children Safe in Education“, we have Designated Safeguarding Leads for Child Protection who are members of the leadership team, and have received appropriate training for this role.  It is their responsibility to ensure that all staff in contact with children receive child protection awareness training on a regular basis. 

Occasions do arise when our concern about a child mean we have to consult other agencies.  Whilst we would always aim to work in partnership with parents there may be exceptions to this when concerns are raised for the protection of a child.
 
On very rare occasions, social care, whilst undertaking an investigation under section 47 of the Children Act 1989, may want to speak to a child without a parent's knowledge.   This would be a decision made in collaboration with partner agencies and would only be done in situations where necessary.  For example, this may be where gaining consent may increase the level of risk to the child or cause evidence to be lost.
 
The procedures, which we follow, have been laid down by the Local Safeguarding Children’s Board, and the school has adopted a Child Protection Policy in line with this for the safety of all. If you want to know more about our procedures, please speak to Mrs Thornton.

A copy of our Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy is available to download from the policies page - click here.

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

Raising a concern

If you are concerned about the welfare of a child, please speak to one of our designated safeguarding leads, or follow the guidance on the Harrow Safeguarding Board website.

Below are some other useful links: 

Harrow Safeguarding Children Board

NSPCC

Childline

Child Exploitation and Online Protection

Visitors to School

We welcome visitors to our school.  We ask all visitors to read through the information in this leaflet:

Our Visitor Guidance Leaflet

Raising a concern in the holidays

If you have concerns regarding a child’s safety and wellbeing during the weekend or a school break, below are services that will be able to help you.

During holiday time and the weekends, you can contact Harrow Children's Services by calling:

Support and Advice for Children

If you have a worry or need some support and a trusted adult cannot help, you can contact the following organisations for help.

• Childline (0800 1111, www.childline.org.uk) – This is a confidential service for children and young people. No problem is too big or too small and they’re there to listen and support you with anything you’d like to talk about. Or you can have a 1-2-1 counsellor chat online.
• NSPCC (0808 800 5000, www.nspcc.org.uk)
• Harrow Children Services - 020 8901 2690.
• Harrow Children Services – Emergency out of hours 020 8424 0999
• Police – in case of an emergency - 999