A fundamental responsibility of a school is to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. At HIS, we are committed to ensuring the safeguarding practice outlined in the HIS Child Protection Policy, which is available at the following link. There is nothing more important than the safety and welfare of our children.
As detailed in the HIS Child Protection Policy, HIS will:
- Create a safe environment for the whole community
- Commit to the HIS Safeguarding Code
- Provide ongoing training to the school community in safeguarding and child protection.
- Develop a strong relationship with the local community in order to access support.
- Identify shifts in local laws, procedures and agencies associated with this Child Protection policy.
- Follow procedures related to discovery of abuse and/or neglect, reporting and action identified in this policy when a staff member has concerns.
- Incorporate learning associated with promoting child protection within the units of inquiry across the school.
- Address issues of online safety within the scope of learning to promote child protection.
- Follow procedures related to safe hiring practices outlined in this policy.
Within the HIS Child Protection Policy, the following code of conduct for all community members can be found. It is a collective responsibility to protect and safeguard the welfare of our children and these are ways that we can help:
Safeguarding Code of Conduct for Community Members
Purpose
Our school has a child protection policy and safeguarding code to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all our students. In order to ensure that everyone who has contact with HIS students has an understanding of our agreements regarding safe conduct with children, please read the following Code of Conduct and sign below to show your understanding.
Reporting
- If you believe that an action of my own could be misinterpreted, the incident and circumstances should be reported as soon as possible.
- If you believe that an incident may represent a child protection concern, the reporting of the incident and circumstance is mandatory.
Communication with Students
- Electronic communication with students should be through HIS email, when available, and if not then through the parent’s email.
- If you collect student phone numbers for safety reasons during an excursion, for example, those numbers will be deleted and the staff member will ensure that students delete the staff numbers after the event.
- You should not connect with a student through social media.
- You should not arrange to meet a student outside of school hours.
- One-to-one meetings should be avoided where possible and should always take place in a visible location.
Physical Contact with Pupils
- You should never have unnecessary physical contact with students and reasonable judgement must be used at all times.
- You can never take the place of a parent in providing physical comfort and should be cautious of any demonstration of affection.
Physical Restraint
- Physical restraint should only be used when a child is in imminent danger of inflicting an injury on himself/herself or on another.
Physical education and other activities requiring physical contact
- Where exercises or procedures need to be demonstrated, extreme caution should be used if the demonstration involves contact with students and, wherever possible, contact should be avoided. It is acknowledged that p may, on occasions, have to initiate physical contact with pupils in order to support a pupil so they can perform a task safely, to demonstrate the use of a particular piece of equipment/instrument or assist them with an exercise. This should be done with the student’s agreement.
- Contact under these circumstances should be for the minimum time necessary to complete the activity and take place in an open environment. Staff should remain sensitive to any discomfort expressed verbally or nonverbally by the child.
Transporting pupils
- It is inadvisable for you to give a lift in a car to a student alone. If there are exceptional circumstances that make unaccompanied transportation of a pupil unavoidable, the journey should be made known to a member of the HIS Administration Team and parents informed.
Confidentiality
- You should never give guarantees of confidentiality to students or adults wishing to tell you about something serious. You should guarantee only that they will pass on information to the minimum number of people who must be told in order to ensure that the proper action is taken to sort out the problem and that you will not tell anyone who does not have a clear need to know.