Safeguarding has become a bit of a buzzword in education. What it means is promoting the welfare of children and that includes:

• Protecting children from maltreatment;

• Preventing impairment of children’s mental and physical health or development;

• Ensuring that children grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care; and

• Taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes.

Our role in school is clearly defined by statutory Department for Education (DfE) guidance - Keeping Children Safe in Education. Our duties form an important part of the wider safeguarding system for children and mean that we will always consider what is in the best interests of the child.

All schools have a Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) and at Camp Hill Boys it is Mr Andrew Caves, the Deputy Head (Pastoral). If you have any concerns or queries of a safeguarding nature, please contact him or your son's Head of Year.

The following links might be useful in terms of offering support and guidance over issues regarding safeguarding. These links are to external sites not operated by the school.

• Safeguarding Partnerships: Each Local Authority will run a Safeguarding Partnership. The Birmingham one can be found at www.lscpbirmingham.org.uk and contains many resources for parents and carers. We recognise that not all of our families live within Birmingham; other Local Authority Safeguarding Partnerships can be found at the following links: Solihull, Dudley, Sandwell, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Walsall, Wolverhampton. If your Local Authority is not listed, simply Google 'safeguarding children' with the name of your local authority and you will find the relevant Safeguarding Partnership.

• Impact Pathways: This is a 'map' of provision of services across the West Midlands aimed at supporting children and families in times of hardship or crisis. It can be found at ipwm.org.uk and lists many avenues to support safeguarding issues.

• National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children: The NSPCC has a range of resources with regard to safeguarding including a dedicated helpline (0808 800 5000) for adults concerned about a child and links to Childline (0800 1111) for those aged 18 and under. The Childline number is the one that we advertise to pupils in PSHE lessons as a means of accessing support outside of school.