Please see our Trust website for details of our central safeguarding team.

Purpose

The safeguarding of children is of paramount importance. All educational establishments have a legal responsibility to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people. Regular monitoring is essential to ensure that strong policies, procedures and mechanisms are in place.

With this in mind, it will be the role of the Director of Inclusion and the Trust Safeguarding Lead to provide oversight of and to quality assure safeguarding at each school across the Trust through a range of calendared activities throughout the year. The aim is to continually improve the quality of safeguarding practice by having an increased emphasis on proactive monitoring arrangements. The cycle of quality assurance activities should assist the safeguarding team at each Academy in supporting effective safeguarding practice by evaluating measures currently in place and identifying any developments that may be required to improve practice.

Quality Assurance Calendar

The quality assurance calendar will include the following activities for each school annually.

• Single Central Record Audit: An initial audit, undertaken by the Director of Inclusion, will take place in the autumn term, with a follow up review within six weeks to ensure that identified actions have been completed. Further checks may be undertaken in the case of ongoing concerns or upon request.
• Website Compliance Check: This will be undertaken by the Trust Safeguarding Lead within the first four weeks of the academic year to ensure that safeguarding policies, safeguarding statements, links to local safeguarding partners and details of safeguarding staff are up to date, have been localised and are easily accessible.
• Staff Safeguarding Questionnaire: There is an expectation that all staff across the Trust complete this questionnaire, distributed by the Trust Safeguarding Lead in the first half term of the academic year, to evidence that they have read and understood the statutory guidance Keeping Children Safe in Education. The Trust Safeguarding Lead will liaise closely with the DSLs to ensure a completion rate of 100%. DSLs will be expected to analyse the results of staff at their school and address any misconceptions, thus ensuring all staff fully understand their safeguarding duty.
• Safeguarding Annual Audit: This in-depth audit, led by the Trust Safeguarding Lead, will include a leadership conversation with the DSL, conversations with pupils and other staff and a review of procedures, training, safeguarding incidents and issues and safeguarding opportunities within the curriculum. This audit will be arranged in liaison with the DSL and may take place at any time across the year.
• Safeguarding Case File Audit: During the autumn and spring term Trust DSL meetings, an audit will be undertaken of a MyConcern safeguarding file from each school. This activity will be completed as a peer review by another TGAT DSL with a view to providing a further opportunity to share learning across the Trust. The aim of the case file audit is to ensure that records are being maintained appropriately and that the information contained in each file is of a high quality.  The Trust Safeguarding Lead will also monitor MyConcern activity at each school fortnightly, maintaining a record of checks undertaken, and may request additional full case file audits if this checking raises concerns.
• Parent/Carer Safeguarding Survey: The Trust is committed to involving parents and carers, in quality assurance processes and seeking feedback from these key stakeholders is vital. This survey runs biennially and provides important feedback for the Principal and DSL to review and act upon. A Trust overview of results is also produced to identify areas of strength and development across all academies and highlight any anomalies in individual academy’s responses. 

Systems

The Director of Inclusion and the Trust Safeguarding Lead will undertake the activities and complete a report for each. These reports will be shared with the DSL, the Principal/Head of School and the Director(s) of Standards, and will also be uploaded to Teams for posterity.

An Executive Safeguarding Meeting will take place fortnightly to discuss an overview of safeguarding need at each school. his meeting will be chaired by the Director of Inclusion and attended by the Trust Safeguarding Lead, Directors of Standards and the CEO. Once a month, the Trust Attendance Welfare Office will join the meeting to present an overview of attendance at each school. The CEO and/or Directors of Standards will then feed back to the Executive Board Education and information about any issues will be shared with Principals.

Safeguarding Committee Meetings: These meetings will take place twice yearly at each academy and have a governance focus, providing an opportunity for Trust leaders to evaluate the leadership and management of safeguarding within the school, ascertain whether the leadership is strategic and proactive and in-school routines are in place to monitor and evaluate safeguarding practice, and ensure that there is a school-wide culture of care and curiosity, with appropriate partnerships formed with external agencies. Actions and recommendations from Trust quality assurance activities are reviewed and data analysed so that leaders are clear on the impact of provision, interventions, and support. 

Supervision: The safeguarding team at each school receives a termly group supervision session with an external safeguarding consultant to support their wellbeing and professional development. Secondary DSLs receive a separate, small group supervision session, which is also termly.  

Reporting to the Trust Board: As requested, the Director of Inclusion and/or the Trust Safeguarding Lead will attend the Educational Performance Committee to present a Trust safeguarding overview. This may include an overview of data, areas of strength and development and any concerns, or may concentrate on a particular area of focus. 

External Audits: Each year, a safeguarding audit will be undertaken by an external safeguarding consultant at two Trust schools, alongside the Trust Safeguarding Lead. This provides external moderation of the checks of the executive governance structure.