Sarah Cunningham

SCITT Safeguarding Lead

SAFEGUARDING

 

SCITT Designated Safeguarding Lead

 

The Designated Safeguarding Lead for Huddersfield Horizon SCITT is Mrs Sarah Cunningham, the SCITT Deputy Director. If you do not feel safe or if you are worried about the safety of someone else, our trainees or a member of staff then please contact Sarah directly about any concerns using the contact details below:

                                       sarah.cunningham@southpennineacademies.org

HUDDERSFIELD HORIZON SCITT PROMOTES SAFER RECRUITMENT IN EDUCATION

SAFER RECRUITMENT

 

Huddersfield Horizon SCITT is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and trainees to share this commitment. Fair and thorough recruitment, selection and interview processes are in place throughout the selection and recruitment of candidates wishing to train to teach with Huddersfield Horizon SCITT.

All trainees who are successful in gaining a conditional offer to study with us will be subjected to the following checks:

  • photographic identification; name, current address and date of birth checks;
  • academic and degree qualification check;
  • evidence of permission to work in the UK;
  • an Enhanced DBS Disclosure with Children’s Barred List check;
  • a prohibition from teaching check;
  • additional checks on people who have lived or worked outside the UK; this would include recording checks for European Economic Area (EEA) teacher sanctions and restrictions

Huddersfield Horizon SCITT is committed to ensuring that at least one person on each interview panel is Safer Recruitment trained.

 

Creating a Safe Culture and On-Going Vigilance

 

It is never sufficient to assume that a safer recruitment and selection process and robust induction arrangements are enough to ensure that the pupils are safe and that there is no risk to them within the educational environment. Creation of a safe culture, with on-going vigilance is essential. Huddersfield Horizon SCITT will continue to strive to create and maintain a safe culture by:

  • Having in place, and putting into practice, clear policies and procedures and ensuring that all employees and trainees are aware of and understand them;
  • Setting acceptable standards of behaviour;
  • Having in place clear procedures for reporting concerns, ensuring that all employees and trainees know what the procedures are and their responsibility for following them;
  • Taking concerns seriously and providing support to individuals raising them;
  • Taking appropriate action in relation to concerns raised;
  • Having in place robust and appropriate induction arrangements;
  • Ensuring that all employees and trainees undertake child protection and other relevant training on a regular basis;
  • Keeping the commitment to safeguarding and child protection on the agenda through regular discussion and/or reminders at staff meetings, training sessions etc;
  • Learning from experience;
  • Never thinking that enough has been done to ensure a safe culture.

 

‘Safer Recruitment’ Statement of Intent

 

Huddersfield Horizon SCITT adopts a consistent and rigorous approach in the recruitment and selection process of employees and trainees, with the aim of ensuring that those recruited are suitable for such an important and responsible role.  The purpose of safer recruitment is ultimately to:

  • Deter: From the beginning of the recruitment process, it is important to send the right message – that the organisation has a rigorous recruitment process and does not tolerate any form of abuse. Wording in adverts and recruitment information must aim to deter potential abusers.
  • Identify and Reject: It will not always be possible to deter potential abusers. Therefore, careful planning for the interview and selection stage, in terms of asking the right questions, setting appropriate tasks and obtaining the right information can assist in finding out who is suitable for the role and who is not.
  • Prevent and Reject: There are no guarantees that even the most robust safer recruitment process will prevent an inappropriate appointment. However, this does not mean it is too late to act. Ensuring that comprehensive induction processes are in place, together with appropriate policies and procedures, raising awareness through staff training and generally developing and maintaining a safe culture within the organisation will all help to prevent abuse or identify potential abusers.

 

For further information on our commitment to the safer recruitment of trainees working with children and young people please view the ‘Safer Recruitment’ policy on our website. The intention of this policy is to ensure that all stages of the recruitment process contain measures to deter, identify, prevent and reject unsuitable people from gaining access to pupils within the partnership. The policy and the practical implementation of recruitment and selection processes also aim to meet all legislative requirements, any statutory or other guidance that may from time to time be issued in order to keep children safe and safer recruitment in education, as well as principles of general good practice.

SAFEGUARDING CHILDREN

 

Safety is of paramount importance to us and it is something which we regularly talk to our trainees and partner schools about and have embedded within our training practices. Trainees and staff complete a variety of training modules including online and in house safeguarding training.

Huddersfield Horizon SCITT follows the safeguarding procedures set by the local Kirklees Safeguarding Children’s Board (KSCB). To view further information on safeguarding in education please click here to visit the Kirklees Safeguarding website.

There are many safeguarding documents which have been published by The Department for Education. The two main ones, which can be viewed on the ‘policies’ section of our website, have been listed below:

On-line Safety

 

On-line Safety is an integral part of the curriculum in all schools. As a training provider in the education sector it is important that we keep reviewing our practice in response to the constantly changing world of technology around us. We regularly seek advice from the Local Authority support team and use the following key websites to keep updated:

Preventing Radicalisation and Extremism

 

From 1st July 2015 all schools and training providers in the education sector have a due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism and or violent extremism; this duty is known as the Prevent Duty. Prevent is one element of the Government’s Counter Terrorism Strategy. The Prevent Strategy aims to prevent people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. The Huddersfield Horizon SCITT has a statutory duty to address the risk of any form of radicalisation and extremism. If you would like further information on the PREVENT strategy please click here to access the Government’s free e-learning package.