Mrs Archibald - Designated Safeguarding Lead, SENCO/Inclusion Co-ordinator and Assistant Headteacher

Mr Langley - Deputy Designated  Safeguarding Lead and Headteacher

Mrs Jukes - Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead and Senior Teacher

Our Committee Member with responsibility for Safeguarding is Susan Foster (Chair of the Academy Committee)

At Stella Maris our aim is to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all our pupils and staff, and to follow laws and guidelines for the protection of children and adults. We value all those with whom we come into contact and aim to treat all people with respect and care.

Safeguarding is not just protecting children from deliberate harm. At Stella Maris we ensure policies and systems are in place to raise awareness and manage all aspects of good safeguarding, including:

Health and safety	Racist abuse	Harassment and discrimination
Prevention of radicalisation	Use of physical intervention	Pupils with medical conditions
Bullying	Providing first aid	Educational visits
School security	Attendance	Drug and substance misuse

Safeguarding Statement

Stella Maris Catholic 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 which can be viewed in both the ‘Safeguarding’ section and ‘Policies’ section on our website.

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 Claire Archibald; 

Our Deputy Designated Safeguarding Leads are:-

Mr Andrew Langley (Headteacher) and

Mrs Victoria Jukes (Senior Teacher)

The Governance Committee member with responsibility for safeguarding in our school is:-

Ms Susan Foster (Chair of the Academy Committee)

Contact details for Kent County Council’s Education Safeguarding Team (EST) and Local Authority Designated Officers (LADOs): LADO Team: kentchildrenslado@kent.gov.uk 03000 41 08 88

Photographs and Videos

Whilst lots of parents and carers really enjoy seeing photos and videos of their children’s school life we are very mindful of our duty of care towards all our pupils. We take the issue of safeguarding very seriously and this includes the use of photographic and video images.

Any photographs or videos taken by parents, carers and relatives at school productions, sports days or other events are for the enjoyment of individual families. They must not be used in any way that could potentially place a child at risk. This would include publishing images in any form of print or on the internet including social networking sites. This is emphasised before concerts and shows etc.

When a child joins our school community, GDPR forms are completed to ensure permissions (or decline of permissions) are obtained for Information & Images.   If your circumstances change and these permission arrangements need to be adjusted, please notify the school office immediately.

We like to use photographs of our children on our website, in school documents, for parent information meetings, newsletters and on our display screens around the school.  These permissions are all gathered in our GDPR agreement for each pupil.