In cases where the school has reason to be concerned that a child may be subject to ill- treatment, neglect or other forms of abuse, the Designated Safeguarding Lead may report this concern to Children’s Services and/or other appropriate agencies.

Please remember that when the school refers a concern about a child to Children’s Services, it is not accusing the parents of abuse but requesting that further investigation takes place to establish whether a child is at risk.

Mr Aaron Spence (Upper Site) and Miss Aimee Hall (Lower Site) are our Designated Safeguarding Lead and Looked After Children Lead

Please support us by ensuring that your child attends school regularly – this is a parents’ legal responsibility. Failing to attend school on a regular basis will be considered as a safeguarding matter. Please see the attendance section of the website for further information. Any absence affects the pattern of a child’s schooling and regular absence will seriously affect their learning. Any pupil’s absence disrupts teaching routines so may also affect the learning of others in the same class.

Mrs Robinson is our Attendance Officer – please contact her on 01670 813111 if you would like to discuss any aspect of attendance or any concerns you may have.

We offer a secure and encouraging environment where children feel safe and their spiritual, moral and cultural development is enhanced through the delivery of our whole school curriculum, including our PSHE/RE curriculum, core values, work with external agencies, charities and the local community.

We carefully check that all staff and volunteers are safe to work with our children. A number of checks are made including DBS checks, references, ID and employment history. We keep a single central record of all this information and this is regularly monitored.

Visitors and volunteers are rigorously checked in much the same way staff are before they can have any unsupervised access to our children. Any contractors on site have to read a safety briefing before being signed into the building. All adults in school wear an ID badge.

We work hard to ensure that our facilities are as safe as possible. The grounds are checked by the caretakers every day and the building is maintained to the highest standards. External experts come regularly to check things like the firefighting equipment, water works and the lift are in perfect working order. The premises are accessible to pupils, parents and staff with disabilities. We carry out half termly fire alarm and evacuation tests and all of this is recorded in our Fire Log. A governor and members of the Leadership Team complete an annual Fire Audit and review the risk assessments and policy at the same time.

Our catering facilities meet the highest standards of hygiene and they are checked regularly by officers from NCC. We also meet the nutritional standards in place nationally and we are careful about the food of all pupils with allergies.

We have worked closely with the Local Council on road safety initiatives and have barriers, road markings and crossings to help pupils stay safe before and after school too.

The Health & Safety team includes a member of the Governing Body and meet regularly to discuss all matters of Health and Safety, Safeguarding and Security, the school complies with all national and local Health & Safety Regulations.

 We recognise that parents may wish to record events such as school plays, sports days etc. to celebrate their child’s achievements. However it is important that such records remain private and for family and personal use only.

If you wish to put images online, and these images contain children who are not part of your family, you must first obtain the permission of parents or carers of the other children concerned.

For further information about taking photographs in school and how the Data Protection Act does not apply to photographs or films being taken for personal use by family and friends please see our use of images policy 

We have an e-safety team in place at Bothal who actively promote monitor e-safety. We also carry out an e-safety audit every year and this supports our comprehensive in-school policy. All pupils, staff and visitors to school must read and sign our Acceptable Use Policy before any access to our systems is allowed.

All usage is monitored by specialist software called Senso Cloud and this is backed up by our own robust firewall and web filtering. Pupils are taught how to stay safe online and this is regularly reinforced in IT lessons and what to do or who they can talk to if they are worried.

 We work with external partners such as the Stonewall Foundation to support its work on different areas of discrimination, such as homophobic bullying. Please see the Tackling Extremism and Radicalisation Policy and our Anti Bullying Policy. The different parts of our curriculum work together to tackle discrimination.