Safeguarding

Below are the key contacts with regards to safeguarding throughout the academy, as well as information and policies that are put in place in order to help promote a safe and secure environment.

If you have a concern that a child is being harmed, is at risk of harm, or you receive a disclosure (intentionally or unintentionally) you must contact the specialist trained senior members of staff with responsibility for Child Protection/Safeguarding shown above, as quickly as possible.

Safeguarding Statement

Q3 Langley is totally committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. We recognise that this is the responsibility of everyone and we all, staff and visitors have an important role to play. We fully understand the role we play in safeguarding the students and perhaps most vulnerable members of our community and how through good multi-agency working we can help protect those too young to protect themselves. As an Academy we must have regard to current legislation when carrying our duties to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. It is the role of our Governing Body to ensure that the appropriate mechanisms are in place to assist staff to understand and discharge their roles and responsibilities as set out in current legislation with regard to safeguarding children. Stephen Knight is the appointed governor for Safeguarding on our local board.

If you have a concern that any student is being harmed, is at risk of harm, or you receive information (intentionally or unintentionally) you must contact the academy reception as soon as possible and ask to speak to an available Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL).

Further information regarding how to keep children safe, identifying and preventing abuse and what help is available can also be found on the NSPCC website.

All applicants for employment within The Trust will be fully screened in accordance with the latest DfE Guidelines – Keeping Children Safe in Education 2024 and Safeguarding Children: Safer Recruitment and Selection in Education Settings.

All staff are trained on Child Protection Procedures.

The key principles of our Safeguarding Statement are that:

• The student’s welfare is, and must always be the paramount consideration.
• All students have a right to be protected from abuse regardless of their age, gender, disability, culture, language, racial origin, religious belief or sexual identity.
• All suspicions and allegations of abuse will be taken seriously and responded to swiftly and appropriately by following Q3 Academy Langley’s Child Protection Policy.

“Taking of unauthorised photographs or video footage within the Academy Grounds is strictly prohibited”

 

Statutory Guidance

In accordance with statutory guidance all Q3 Langley Staff receive regular safeguarding training and are fully aware of and are in compliance with the following guidance:

• Working together to Safeguard Children (DfE)
• Keeping Children Safe in Education: statutory guidance for schools and colleagues (DfE)
• The Procedures of Sandwell Children’s Safeguarding Partnership

Q3 Langley is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.  All posts within the school will require enhanced DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) clearance in addition to identification and qualification checks.

The Prevent Duty

From 1st July 2015 schools are subject to a duty under section 26 of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 in the exercise of their functions to have “due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism”. This duty is known as the Prevent Duty.

More information on The Prevent Duty

Q3 Academy is committed to fulfilling this duty and to carrying out the four main actions responsibly, namely: risk assessment, working in partnership, staff training and IT policies.

Risk assessment – The statutory guidance makes it clear that schools are expected to assess the risk of children being drawn into terrorism. Q3 Academy Langley has a clear policy in place for protecting children who may be vulnerable to radicalisation. This is not a distinct policy for the ‘Prevent Duty’ but is included within our Safeguarding/Child Protection policy.

Partnerships – The Trust works with partner agencies to seek advice, support and guidance to draw on multi-agency expertise.

Training – Q3 Academy Langley’s Designated Safeguarding Lead has undertaken Prevent awareness training to enable them to offer advice and support to other members of staff. All staff have attended training on how to identify factors that can make students vulnerable to radicalisation.

IT – The Academy ensures that students are safe from terrorist and extremist material when accessing the internet within the Academy.  The Academy uses Web and Email filtering appliances as well as Screen Monitoring software to identify any potential risks or safeguarding issues which are checked on a regular basis.

Education – Here at Q3 Academy Langley, we have a robust RSHE curriculum which covers the prevent duty and how students will be aware of the agenda.

The Educate Against Hate website, which is the collaboration between the Department for Education, the Home Office, the NSPCC, Internet Matters, Childnet, ParentZone, UK Internet Safety Centre and many other organisations, brings together the best advice, support and resources available for parents, teachers and school leaders who want to learn how to protect young people from extremism and radicalisation. The information and advice available on Educate Against Hate is an invaluable resource and we encourage all parents to visit the site and familiarise themselves with the information it provides.

• Educate Against Hate – http://www.educateagainsthate.com/

Young Carers Policy 

Introduction 

Young carers are children or young people who look after someone (normally in their family) that has an illness or disability. They may take on practical or emotional caring tasks that an adult would normally do. They may be looking after their mum or dad, grandparent or maybe a brother or sister.

What as a school can we do to help and support our young carers?

We can look at ways to reduce barriers to education for young carers, such as opportunities support with homework; offering lunchtime detentions; and considering access to phoning family members if needed. At Q3 Langley we raise awareness among staff and pupils of the issues young carers face through family lunch topics, PSHE lessons, or using opportunities such as Carers Week. At Q3 Langley we do this without singling out anyone as being a young carer. Ensuring that our anti-bullying strategy identifies young carers as a group, who are more likely to experience bullying so that staff are aware and can offer support if they see a situation occurring. A designated lead for young carers has been allocated at the Academy to look after the welfare of these students. The isolation faced by young carers means they often struggle to come forward to tell school staff and they do not wish to burden their parents, which means they are more likely to struggle in silence. If you require any further information, please contact the Academy or talk to your child’s PLD.

Social Media

What is social media?

Social media is the term given to websites, online tools and applications that allow users to interact, often by sharing information, images, video, opinions, knowledge and interest. Social media involves the building of communities or networks, encouraging participation and engagement.

Common social media formats include: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Live.me, LinkedIn, Bebo, blogs, podcasts, YouTube and Flickr. Social media is changing all the time and new channels are always appearing – so this list is not exhaustive.

Social media also includes video and gaming apps and software that allows online communication, posting of comments and sharing of videos – either pre-recorded and uploaded or live streaming (for example, but not limited to, Musical.ly and Roblox).

 

Staying safe on social media

Staying safe online and on social media is taught in school, which includes:

• What to post;
• What not to post;
• Online dangers and how children can be coerced or “groomed”;
• Privacy settings and how to regularly check them.

 All of this is detailed in the Academy’s ICT policy.

The Academy hopes that by sharing this guidance with parents, carers and students we can:

• Encourage and educate students to stay safe online;
• Protect students and staff from cyberbullying;
• Make parents and carers aware of how they can protect their children when they are online;
• Encourage parents and carers to support this policy.

 

Advice for parents/carers

We want parents and carers to support the work we do around staying safe online and preventing cyberbullying. Things to consider:

• Monitor your child’s social media presence, including their privacy settings, what they post and comment on as well as the responses they receive.
• Make sure your child does not share inappropriate details, images or videos of themselves or others.
• Check your child’s privacy settings and supervise or restrict their use of social media if necessary.
• Encourage your child to use a profile name that is not their full name (where this meets with the social media platform’s rules).
• It is strongly recommended that you do not share photos of or information about children other than your own on without the permission of the other child’s parents/carers.
• If you share photos of your own children, be mindful that sharing personal details such as a child’s full name, school name and class name alongside their photo can identify their child’s whereabouts to others.
• Please do not make allegations or complaints about the Academy on social media.
• Make sure your own comments, images or videos relating to the Academy, its students or staff are fair, accurate and have the permission of all those who feature in them.
• Make sure you are secure with your own privacy settings when sharing photos of your child or children.

 

Advice for students

 We want students to say safe when using social media.

• Don’t share private information (such as your address or full name) with people you don’t know.
• Don’t share anything that puts you or someone else in danger.
• Check your privacy settings – do you know who can see what you’re sharing?
• Remember, once you’ve shared something online you no longer have control over it.
• Don’t bully, harass or deliberately upset others.
• Don’t share anything that negatively affects the reputation of the Academy.
• If you are worried about something you have seen on social media, speak to your parent or carer, teacher or head teacher.

 

Cyberbullying

 The Academy takes allegations of cyberbullying seriously and encourages students to report any concerns to a parent or carer, Learning Consultant, member of staff or the Head of School.

• The Academy recognises that staff members can also be the victims of cyberbullying.

 

How the school will deal with complaints about social media

• If parents or students see inappropriate content about the Academy, its staff or students that could bring the Academy into disrepute, they should bring this to the attention of the head teacher.
• The Academy will, whenever possible, remove inappropriate content posted on academy-administered social media sites.
• Parents or carers who have a concern about how social media is being used by a student, member of staff or another parent/carer should get in touch with the Academy.
• The Academy will decide if and how best to investigate any concerns. Parents/carers should avoid raising further complaints or making allegations using social media while this happens.
• Action may be taken against any student found to be engaging in inappropriate behaviour online.
• If a parent or carer makes claims about or allegations against the Academy, its staff or students on social media, they may be asked to remove comments that are abusive or inappropriate. In extreme cases, the Academy may seek legal advice.

E-Safety for Parents/Carers

The government has recently announced new measures to keep children safe online at school and at home. At Q3 Academy Langley we have appropriate filters and monitoring systems in place, so that no student can access harmful content via the Academy’s IT systems and concerns can be spotted quickly. We also teach our students about safeguarding, including online, through our tutor programmes, assemblies, Family Lunch, Ethos Week and parent workshops.

Please see below for links to some great online resources for parents and carers about online safety. They provide helpful support and information on understanding the risks and benefits of social media and advice on how to prevent risks becoming problems.

For example the UK’s Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCISS) has produced a guide for parents on social media. It contains practical tips about the use of safety and privacy features on apps, cloud services and games, and some conversation prompts to help families start talking about online safety.

• http://parentinfo.org/ – online tool with information on how to keep children safe whilst using the internet
• https://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/parents – information for concerns over children and where to report incidents
• http://www.internetmatters.org – expert information on how to keep your children safe online
• Child Safety Online Information – Government guidelines on using Social Media
• Online Safety – NSPCC online safety information
• Online Safety Guidance for Parents – Useful leaflet from SWGFL

Information for internet use at home:

• Be aware of what is on the internet and what your child could be exposed to – not just inappropriate content but scam and ‘phishing’ sites
• Ironically, don’t give your child a list of do’s and don’ts – they’ll probably ask ‘why not’ and then try to find out! Children are more likely to respond more positively if you encourage them to be ‘smart’ or ‘cool’ on the Internet
• Set rules for use – including what to go on and the length of time.
• Don’t forget, it’s not just computers, mobiles phones and tablets have more and more internet facilities on them.
• Keep your machine safe with anti-virus software
• Consider parental controls to restrict/monitor internet access
• Don’t be afraid of confrontation if you find any wrong-doing – but don’t overreact. Sometimes it is just an innocent mistake.

E-Safety for Students

At Q3 Academy Langley, we aim to provide students with a safe learning environment to create foundations in which they can develop their knowledge and skills in using ICT systems to become perceptive and safe users.

According to statistics:

• 7 in 10 admitted that they had been victims of cyberbullying
• 1 in 4 experience this on a daily basis
• Girls used to be more likely to be bullied than boys, but now boys are just as likely as girls to be subjected to online bullying
• 75% of those surveyed use social media – over half of those with Facebook profiles had experienced cyberbullying there.
• Only 15% of parents think their children are safe online
• Over half surveyed used the internet in their own room
• 3 out of 4 children over the age of 12 have a mobile phone
• 1 in 4 children ignore age restriction on sites, whether to gain access or to create profiles
• 1 in 25 teenagers have received online sexual solicitations with the offender seeking to make contact with them offline.
• Teenagers are now spending on average around 30 hours per week online

Staying Safe Online

The breadth of issues classified within online safety is considerable and ever evolving, but can be categorised into four areas of risk:

Content: being exposed to illegal, inappropriate, or harmful content, for example: pornography, fake news, racism, misogyny, self-harm, suicide, anti-Semitism, radicalisation, and extremism.

Contact: being subjected to harmful online interaction with other users; for example: peer to peer pressure, commercial advertising and adults posing as children or young adults with the intention to groom or exploit them for sexual, criminal, financial or other purposes.

Conduct: online behaviour that increases the likelihood of, or causes, harm; for example, making, sending and receiving explicit images (e.g. consensual and non-consensual sharing of nudes and semi-nudes and/or pornography, sharing other explicit images and online bullying, and

Commerce: risks such as online gambling, inappropriate advertising, phishing and or financial scams.

Tips to stay safe online:

• Don’t post personal information online such as address, telephone number
• Think carefully before posting comments, images or videos online – even if you remove it, it could have been copied
• Check your privacy settings on social media sites
• Do you know who you are talking to? Many people online impersonate
• Don’t speak to people that you don’t know
• Don’t arrange to meet strangers
• If you are the victim of abusive texts, emails, photos etc., then tell a parent/carer/teacher
• If you see something that you don’t feel comfortable with, either leave the website or tell a parent/carer/teacher
• Know what is spam and what is real

Reporting Incidents

E-Safety is really important to us, both inside and outside of the Academy as it affects practically everything we do in our everyday lives. Of course, it is difficult for us to control anything outside of the Academy. However, we aspire to provide a safe environment within the Academy and should any e-safety concerns arise that could affect the Academy life of a student, we will do all we can to provide a solution.

Remember:

• If you come across material that you don’t like on the internet, the easiest thing to do is to leave the website.
• If you are a victim of cyberbullying, see any incidents of cyberbullying, or suspect that it is happening, then tell a parent, carer or member of staff immediately.

For advice on staying safe online, the following links may be of some help:

• childnet.com
• thinkuknow.co.uk
• kidsmart.org.uk
• saferinternet.org.uk
• ceop.police.uk

CEOP – the child exploitation and online protection agency – is an online service aimed to protect children from harm, offline and online. If you feel someone has acted inappropriately towards you or a person you know, you can report it to CEOP below. The CEOP centre is staffed by specialist police and investigative officers who will follow up your report.

Scan for Support for Students

For more support outside of the Academy day, please follow the link below. 

Scan_For_Support_for Students

Scan for Support for Parents

For more support at home, please follow the link below.

Scan_for_Support_for_Parents

Operation Encompass

The Academy has been given the opportunity to take part in a project that will run jointly between schools and West Midlands Police.

Operation Encompass is the reporting to schools, prior to the start of the next school day, when a child or young person has been exposed to, or involved in, any domestic incident.

Operation Encompass will ensure that a member of the Academy staff, known as a Key Adult, is trained to allow them to liaise with the local authority and to use the information that has been shared, in confidence, while ensuring that the Academy is able to make provision for possible difficulties experienced by children, or their families, who have been involved in, or exposed to a domestic abuse incident.

We are keen to offer the best support possible to all our students; we believe this will be extremely beneficial for all those involved.

Operation Encompass Poster

Operation Encompass Letter