William Ransom Safeguarding Statement

Everyone at William Ransom Primary School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all children and staff. Through an open, vigilant, and child-centred safeguarding culture, we expect all members of our school community to share this commitment. Our priority is ensuring that every child in our care feels safe, secure, respected and happy.

To verify that all adults who work or volunteer in our school are suitable, we maintain robust safer recruitment practices. These include:

• Completing enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks, including Children's Barred List checks where individuals engage in regulated activity.

• Obtaining verified, professional references that explicitly address suitability to work with children.

• Conducting online pre-recruitment searches and comprehensive identity and qualification verifications in line with statutory requirements.

All staff read and understand Part One of Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE), receive regular child protection training and maintain a proactive mindset where "it could happen here". Our staff are equipped to recognise emerging needs early, manage low-level concerns swiftly and respond effectively to contemporary safeguarding risks, including online harms, technology-facilitated abuse and mental health indicators.

Our Governing Body shares this commitment, regularly auditing practice, policies and the effectiveness of our filtering and monitoring systems. Our Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy is accessible in the Policies section of our website.

We recognise the importance of early intervention and work in close partnership with multi-agency partners in accordance with Hertfordshire Safeguarding Children Partnership (HSCP) inter-agency procedures. Where children and families require additional support, we actively engage with local Early Help services, Families First teams and children’s social care (Services for Young People and Hertfordshire Children's Services). Where concerns regarding an allegation against staff arise, these are handled in direct consultation with the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO). Wherever possible, concerns regarding a pupil will be discussed with their parents or carers first, unless there is reason to believe that doing so would place the child at increased risk of harm.

We are an Operation Encompass school, working in partnership with Hertfordshire Constabulary. Under this protocol, police notify our Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) team of any police-attended domestic abuse incidents involving our pupils prior to the start of the next school day, ensuring immediate, informed support can be put in place.

 

Our Safeguarding Team

At William Ransom we have a Safeguarding Team who work with our children, families and outside agencies.  They also support all of the staff in ensuring we provide the best care for our children.

• The Designated Safeguarding Lead is Tony Plunkett (Headteacher)
   
• The Deputy Designated Safeguarding Leads are
  • Julie Hall (Deputy Headteacher)          
  • Victoria Wheat (Deputy Headteacher)
  • Hayley Holmes (Early Years Lead)
• Our Safeguarding Governor is Jane Buchanan, who monitors that the school meets all statutory requirements in regard to Safeguarding.

All of the adults in our school help to keep children safe. They are trained in Prevent (radicalisation) and to at least Level 1 Child Protection.

 

Useful links for parents

• The NSPCC offers helpful information for parents and carers on a range of issues, such as internet safety, protecting children at home and positive parenting tips. To view go to: https://www.nspcc.org.uk/
• CEOP provide a lot of useful information for Online Safety. To view go to: https://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/
• Look on the Families First website for helpful guidance: Families First Website
• William Ransom Child Protection policy can be found here

 

Reporting a concern

Should you have any concerns of a safeguarding nature you would be welcome to discuss these at any time with any member of the William Ransom Safeguarding Team.

For serious concerns anyone can contact Hertfordshire children’s services on 0300 123 4043 (24 hours a day).