SafeGuarding

sandbach high school and Sixth form college

What is Safeguarding?

Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children refers to the process of protecting children from maltreatment, preventing the impairment of health or development, ensuring that children grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care and taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes.

Our Promise at Sandbach High School and Sixth Form College

We recognise our moral and statutory responsibility to safeguard and promote the welfare of all pupils. We endeavour to provide a safe and welcoming environment where children are respected and valued. We are alert to the signs of abuse and neglect and follow our procedures to ensure that children receive effective support, protection and justice.

Meet Our Safeguarding Team

Nicola Oyler

Ms Nicola Oyler, Designated Safeguarding Lead

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Mr Mark Hitchen, Deputy Safeguarding Lead

Main School Safeguarding Team

Jodie Snowling 

Kyle Fairclough

Laura Thompson

Jen Lawton

Aimee Brawn

 

Sixth Form Safeguarding:

Vicki Pope

Caty Reid, Safeguarding Link Trustee  

Caty

If you have a concern about any student of Sandbach High School please phone the school reception 01270 765031 and ask for

- Designated Safeguarding Lead:  Nicki Oyler (noyler@sandbachhigh.co.uk)

- Deputy Safeguarding Lead: Mark Hitchen (MHitchen@sandbachhigh.co.uk)

- Safeguarding Lead: Vicki  Pope (vpope@sandbachhigh.co.uk)

- You can also speak to any of the safeguarding team highlighted above on the main school number or send an Email to Safeguarding@Sandbachhigh.co.uk 

Our Pastoral Team

The Pastoral team plays a key role in supporting the whole child. Each House is cared for by a Pastoral Lead and a Pastoral Assistant, with each child having their own form teacher. The pastoral team have an overview of all aspects of pastoral care across the year groups, supporting and caring for students and families.

The wider pastoral team include the Attendance Officer, Safeguarding Officers, Mental Health & Wellbeing Coordinator, Mentors, Counsellors and First Aid. Our team works closely with the SEND Team and SENCO ensuring wraparound care.

The Designated Safeguarding Lead and Pastoral Leads ensure the safeguarding of our most vulnerable students who are at high risk: their safety and wellbeing is our number one priority. The Pastoral Team are trained in dealing with a range of mental health and wellbeing issues, supporting and signposting students to the appropriate in-school support and self-help resources.

  • Liaising with Social Care
  • Completion of Early Help Assessments
  • Attendance and contributions at Child Protection Conferences, Core Group meetings, Child in Need meetings
  • Completion of Early Help Assessment and referrals to the Family Support Workers for support with the aim of supporting identified families
  • Leading on the care, guidance and the educational plans for our Children in Care
  • Planning and delivering Mental Health Awareness days. 

Each House has it's own webpage, click here to the main Houses webpage

Students can find lots of sources of help (both in school and outside of school) on our Who to speak to webpage 

Early Help

The purpose of early help is to prevent any issue from getting worse by offering families support at the right time. Any professional working with your family, such as those based in schools, health services, and in voluntary sector organisations, can offer early help services as soon as they can see that advice, support and/or intervention may be needed.

Early help works best when it's offered to the whole family and when services are delivered jointly by professionals.

Early Help Assessments (EHA) are how professional identify and asses your family's needs.

We complete the assessment with your family and a range of different organisations, such as schools and health services. This is so the support given meets the needs of the whole family. An EHA means everyone can make sure the support is working and making a difference to your family. It also helps to improve local services for everyone.

Each locality team is made up of staff from different professional backgrounds including early years, children centres, family outreach, youth services and other specialist services. Locality teams work with other partner agencies such as schools, health, police, community safety team, housing providers, probation and substance misuse providers to support children and families.

Please contact the pastoral team if you would like to discuss an early help referral.

Operation Encompass

Sandbach High School is committed to working in partnership with local relevant organisations to safeguard and protect children across Cheshire and provide the best possible care and support for our pupils.

In conjunction with Cheshire Police, Sandbach High School is part of a project called Operation Encompass. The purpose of Operation Encompass is to safeguard and support children and young people who have been involved in, heard or witnessed a domestic abuse incident. Following such an incident, children will often arrive at school distressed, upset, worried and unprepared. Operation Encompass aims to ensure that appropriate school staff (called Key Adults) are made aware early enough to support children and young people in a way that means they feel safe and included. This is a valuable initiative that means we can continue to support and help children and families within our school community when they need it the most.

If you would like to speak to someone further about Operation Encompass, or require any additional information, please do not hesitate to contact Ms Nicki Oyler – Designated Lead for Safeguarding.

You can find out more by visiting www.operationencompass.org

Mental Health

Sandbach High School strives to educate young people about their mental health and emotional wellbeing, removing the stigma relating to mental illness, referring students to services that support students both in school and in the community. Sandbach High School works with other schools, the NHS, local authorities, voluntary and community services, promoting and signposting local services.

Follow the link to the mental health section of our website for more information

Online Safety

E-safety or online safety is all about minimising risk. It’s about being aware of the possible threats that online activity can bring, and how to deal with them.
These risks are grouped into four categories:

Conduct: children’s behaviour may put them at risk
Content: access to inappropriate or unreliable content may put children at risk
Contact: interaction with unsuitable, unpleasant or dangerous people may put children at risk
Commercialism: children’s use of platforms with hidden costs may put them at risk.

The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) is a command of the National Crime Agency, and is dedicated to tackling the sexual abuse and exploitation of children and young people. CEOP is here to help young people (up to age 18) who have been forced or tricked into taking part in sexual activity with anyone online or in the real world. For more information and advice or to report concerns directly, click on this link.

Useful links:

Safe and Savvy Online
Blog: Risks of gaming This blog discusses the risks of gaming and how you can address them, to help protect children from online harms. Top tips for online gaming.
Snapchat parent’s guide to Snapchat

This checklist holds information on how to keep your Snapchat profile under your control

Privacy and safety checklist

Instagram This checklist holds information on how to keep your Instagram profile under your control
Facebook This checklist holds information on how to keep your Facebook profile under your control
Twitter This checklist holds information on how to keep your Twitter profile under your control
TikTok This checklist holds information on how to keep your TikTok profile under your control

 

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The following documents are available on our policies page: https://sandbachhigh.co.uk/policies/

Child protection and safeguarding policy 

Mental Health and Wellbeing for students

Online safety and internet use