Safe guarding and Wellbeing
The protection and safety of children should be a priority to any individual working with young people. Safe guarding, ‘relates to the action taken to promote the welfare of children and protect them from harm’ (Gov.uk, 2014). Key policies such as the statutory guidance for ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’ (DfE 2018) have been provided to ensure schools can identify and be aware of safe guarding issues in the educational environment. The importance of safe guarding is further represented in the second part of the teaching standards, personal and professional conduct, stating that teachers should ‘regard for the need to safeguard pupils’ well-being, in accordance with statutory provisions’ (DfE, 2011). Every teacher has a duty of care and responsibility to protect their pupils; teachers should ensure they have thoroughly inspected their school’s safety procedures and are fully aware of the Safe guarding lead. There are many challenges teachers can face in regards to pupils safeguarding and wellbeing, one being keeping children safe online.
Online Safety
Reflecting on my recent lecture on safe guarding, a key issue that emerged was online safety and how challenging it can be for teachers to ensure children are safe on the internet. As Turvey et al (2016) suggests, the rapid ongoing changes of technology can cause frequent risks for children staying safe online. Therefore, is it of high importance that parents and teacher’s keep up to date with the technological changes and informing children on their digital safety skills. Schools should ensure internet safety policies are in place to allow safe access and responsible use of the internet (Turvey et al, 2016). These policies should be shared with parents to encourage these safety procedures to be enforced within pupil’s homes as well. Although, this can be a struggle due to the modern day gadgets pupils possess which can be connected to any internet source. In order to prevent this, we as teacher’s have the ability to empower our children to become aware of potential online risks; a significant way of to do this is through discussion and gaining trust in the classroom. Teacher’s must assure pupils they are always there to listen; this can be achieved through PSHE lessons or during the beginning of the school day. As teachers, our duty of care is to promote online safety and to trust our pupils to make responsible choices when using the internet.
According to Turvey et al (2016); teachers need a clear understanding of the risks involved for children online, Childnet International (2018) indicate the potential risks through four main categories’ conduct, contact, content and commercialism. These issues such as conduct refer to the information that can be gathered from a child’s online activity; children need to be fully aware of who is able to view and access their personal information. It is important to make sure pupils understand the importance of online privacy and the potential risks this can impose if they share personal information online. For my future practice I will make sure my students are aware of privacy settings; I will convey this through various videos which show children the importance of privacy and how easy it can be for anyone to access your information.
FGM
Another safeguarding issue that arose from my recent educational safety lecture, was the importance and awareness of preventing FGM. FGM is a form of child abuse that is illegal within the UK (NHS, 2016). FGM mutilates the female genitals, this can involve particial or total removal of the genetalia. Within the UK it is estimated that 137,000 girls and women have been effected by FGM (NSPCC, 2018). Under safeguarding protocal it is the duty of all individuals working with children to be aware of the signs and behaviours that can indicate a child has gone through FGM or may be at risk in the future (DoH, 2016). I as a trainee teacher have completed my safe guarding training on FGM and in doing so have correct knowledge of how to seek signs of FGM, how to support these indivuduals and who to contact if this issue was to occur. It is adviced by the DfE (2018) that if any staff individuals have any concerns regarding FGM, they should contact their safe guarding lead; however, it is the legal duty of a teacher to directly report to police if they discover the act of FGM has been carried out on a child under the age of 18.
Safeguarding will be at the forefront of my professional practice; my duty of care is to protect the safety and wellbeing of all young people. As I continue my teaching journey, my safeguarding training will always be up to date and I will ensure as soon as I enter a new school that I am fully aware of all safety procedures and met the safe guarding lead. Communication will play a significant part in my teaching, allowing my pupils to ensure there is trust within my classroom. I truly believe that if I secure trusting relationships with my pupils that it will empower them to make the correct decisions regarding their own safety.
Reference:
Childnet International. (2018). [online] Available at: https://www.childnet.com [Accessed 25 Oct. 2018].
DfE. (2011). [online] Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/665520/Teachers__Standards.pdf [Accessed 14 Oct. 2018].
DfE. (2014). Safeguarding children and young people. [online] Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/safeguarding-children-and-young-people/safeguarding-children-and-young-people#safeguarding [Accessed 14 Oct. 2018].
DfE. (2018). Keeping children safe in education Statutory guidance for schools and colleges. [online] Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/741314/Keeping_Children_Safe_in_Education__3_September_2018_14.09.18.pdf [Accessed 20 Oct. 2018].
DfE. (2018). Keeping children safe in education. London: Department for Education.
DoH. (2016). Female Genital Mutilation Risk and Safeguarding Guidance for professionals. [online] Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/525390/FGM_safeguarding_report_A.pdf [Accessed 16 Dec. 2018].
NHS. (2016). NHS – Female Genital Mutilation. [online] Available at: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/female-genital-mutilation-fgm/ [Accessed 14 Jan. 2019].
NSPCC. (2018). Facts and statistics – FGM. [online] Available at: https://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/child-abuse-and-neglect/female-genital-mutilation-fgm/fgm-facts-statistics/ [Accessed 12 Nov. 2018].
Turvey, K., Potter, J., Burton, J., Allen, J. and Sharp, J. (2016). Primary Computing and Digital Technologies: Knowledge, Understanding and Practice. 7th ed. London: Learning Matters.
