Safeguarding, Support and Wellbeing

Safeguarding – what is it?

Safeguarding, and promoting the welfare of children, is a broader term than Child Protection. It encompasses protecting children from maltreatment, preventing impairment of children’s health or development, and ensures children grow up in safe circumstances. Child Protection is part of this definition and refers to activities undertaken to prevent children suffering, or likely to suffer, significant harm.

The Teachers’ Standards 2012 state that teachers, including headteachers, should safeguard children’s wellbeing and maintain public trust in the teaching profession as part of their professional duties.

Safeguarding Team at OSA

• Mrs E Price, Vice Principal and Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL)

• Mrs C Barrett, Pastoral Manager – Deputy DSL
• Mrs C Hingston, Pastoral Manager – Deputy DSL
• Mr O King, Pastoral Manager – Deputy DSL
• Mrs M Newell, Pastoral Manager – Deputy DSL

Email Mrs Price Mrs Barrett Mrs Hingston Mr King Mrs Newell

You will find our OAT Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy, along with other Safeguarding Guidance from the Department for Education (DfE), via links on the ‘Policies’ page of our website, here

FREE Safeguarding App

Please see details (complete with instructions for downloading and ‘logging in’ as an OSA student or parent/carer) available from these links

Parent/Carer                 Student

Ways in which we offer our support

Welcome to the Ormiston Sudbury Academy safeguarding page. It is intended that the information and links here will be informative and useful to parents and carers with regard to many aspects of safeguarding and child protection. Included are links to official documents, policies and government legislation around which our policies and practice are based.

We aim to provide a safe environment where children feel able to discuss issues with us. Any action we may feel necessary, for example making a referral to the police or social services, will be in the best interests of the child whilst also working with parents and carers.

Via our ‘Support’ section, we also offer a variety of links to websites, documentation or resources that we feel may help students and their parents/carers with not only Safeguarding issues, but also general wellbeing and tackling the growing concerns over mental health.

We have provided links to information about a variety of forms of ‘child abuse’ that are recognised, by the Government and Educational Bodies, as being potential issues for young people in the UK; there are also links to some of the tutor time presentations and activities or assembly sessions we conduct with OSA students to raise their awareness of some of these issues and to try and help them to understand how to safeguard themselves against some of them. As a staff body we keep up to date with national issues and take part in regular training, we also read about current issues weekly; links to some of the articles we read around national issues are also available for you to read and it’s important to mention that although these hopefully don’t happen here at OSA, they could!

If you require any further information please don’t hesitate to contact a member of the Safeguarding team (above) at the Academy.

Who to contact if you have a Safeguarding / Child Protection concern

If you are concerned about your child, another child or someone else, then please contact us and let us know about your concern, or use other forms of contact to other agencies if there is a more immediate concern. Do not delay.

Email Mrs Price Mrs Barrett Mrs Hingston Mr King Mrs Newell

Out of hours or emergency contacts

• Children’s Services Customer First: 0808 800 4005
• Suffolk Police: 01473 613500 or 101
• In an emergency dial 999

Additional Resources and Wellbeing Support

Maintaining students’ wellbeing is as much a part of our Safeguarding regime as Child Protection and keeping them safe from harm. Over time, we come across lots of helpful, informative and ‘relevant’ media articles that we share with staff, students and parents, as well as lots of organisations and websites that offer advice, guidance and helpful hints to maintain students wellbeing and safety – both in the ‘real’ world and in the online world; we encourage you to take a look at some of these resources on our ‘Support and Guidance’ page, here