What’s Going On?

An insight into the world of safeguarding at Welly

The Lent Term is always a busy one for the safeguarding team; we are excited to share with you some of the things we have been getting up to!

SOMA SARA – speaking at Wellington

We are delighted to announce that Soma Sara will be coming to Wellington on the 25th September to deliver a Fireside talk. This will be open to parents and students, so do please make a note in your diaries.

What have the Values Champions been up to? An overview by Gemma Nicholas: with others and look at the good practice happening in other sectors and to see how we might incorporate ideas into our own work.

Governor Oversight

After 7 years, our Safeguarding Governor - Felicity

Kirk - stepped down. Felicity has been a wonderful ‘critical friend’ to the team and has also ensured that safeguarding is considered by the Governors in their meetings and that the Board provides the necessary challenge and oversight of this important area. We are delighted that current serving Governor Ginny Rhodes, (CEO of the Circle Trust and a highly experienced DSL) will be the interim Safeguarding Governor whilst the Board appoints someone new to this incredibly important position.

The first parental podcast

Following ideas which were generated at the Parent’s Forum in October, we are delighted that our first podcast will be posted on the Safeguarding webpage shortly. We hope that these short bursts of information will enable you to keep in touch with our work as well as provide information to help you on a variety of different topics. The episodes this term will be:

“This half term has seen the VC team expand as we welcomed Lana and Logan from the WH&FC. They will be a fantastic addition to the team, and this will help us work across departments and widening relationships across College. We have been encouraged to see some lovely values nominations and examples of courage, which has been the value of the half term. 8 new staff have been inducted and the VCs will be involved in the VBA element of interview process in the coming weeks as we enter a busy period of recruitment.”

A safer recruitment update

Delyth spent a week with the Lucy Faithful Foundation completing the trainer course for safer recruitment. Having successfully passed the assessment, Delyth is now an accredited trainer and qualified to deliver this training to our staff. Knowing the organisation well, this means that she will be able to tailor the course relevantly addressing the specific vulnerabilities that working in a boarding school presents. Following the Bichard Report in 2004, it is a requirement for at least one member of an interview panel in a school to have safer recruitment training.

External work

The team remains totally focussed on the students at Wellington. Sometimes, however, we do get asked to share our expertise across the UK. In January, Dave Walker and Delyth both spoke at the Keynote Education Safeguarding Conference in London. Jess and Delyth were invited to be part of some DfE roundtable consultation discussions about online safety and multiagency information sharing. Opportunities like these are important for the team; it gives us the chance to work

• Episode 1: Who are we and what do we do? (Join the safeguarding team for coffee as they talk about their role in the school and the specific responsibility within the team.)

• Episode 2: Relational Aggression (Dave Walker and Tom Wayman talk about what this is and how parents can help)

The link to the safeguarding webpage is here.

Working with Naima Charlier (Director of EDI)

It is the culture that exists within any school that underpins the safeguarding environment. The safeguarding team are working closely with Naima as there is a significant overlap between safeguarding and EDI. Recently a SWOT analysis on ‘culture’ was undertaken and plans around staff training have been proposed which look at short, medium and long-term goals. The particular areas of interest from EDI and safeguarding are trust, fear, openness and psychological safety and how we ensure that everyone in our community – students, parents and staff – feel a genuine sense of belonging.

Lets and Events

We have been working with our Events team this term to ensure that any event that the College holds are risk assessed appropriately and that any third party organisation who works with children and who uses our facilities also supply us with their safeguarding policy and procedures. This is in line with KCSIE 2022, para 167.

Our office re-decoration

For the first time, members of the pastoral and safeguarding teams are going to be housed in the same place! Behind the iconic rainbow door, staff and students can now find Dave Walker and Jenny Griggs (Head of Student Emotional Health and Wellbeing), Delyth and Jess. Gemma Nicholas (PA to Dave and Jenny) and Ilona Varey (PA to Delyth and Jess) will also be based there. We are hugely grateful to the works department who have painted and walls and allowed us to have a new carpet!

Safeguarding walks

The team is focussing their walks on academic departments this term. Each member of the team has 3 departments that they will visit to highlight good practice, ensure that relevant policies and documentation are up to date and visible and to also ensure that there are no safeguarding concerns in that area of the College. As part of the annual house inspection process, safeguarding is also inspected. Jess and Delyth visit all houses looking at specific aspects of safeguarding and pupils also answer some safeguarding questions as part of the student survey.

Safeguarding mugs to all new staff

The safeguarding team have been giving out highly prized mugs for the last few years. We have taken the decision to give them to all new members of staff and they will be presented with them when they have their safeguarding 1-2-1 induction. The idea behind the mugs is to help staff remember that safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility and to never lose sight of putting children at the centre of every decision that they make.

“Safeguarding slyboots”

This term the pastoral team have been thinking about how to reduced bias in decision making and have implemented a set of ‘devil’s advocate’ questions which are used in meetings. For each meeting a member of the team is nominated as the ‘safeguarding slyboots’ and it is their role to challenge statements made within the meetings and any decisions made. Questions include:

• How do you know that? Where did you get the information from?

• Is that an assumption or a fact? Is that first-hand knowledge or second hand?

• What do the family know? Why? Are we happy with their current level of knowledge?

• Does anyone hold any particular beliefs or feelings around this subject area? Take a moment to think about whether that might be influencing what you are thinking or saying.

• What if we did the opposite of what we are doing now?

Slowing down decision making in this way engages the part of the brain which is less prone to cognitive biases and therefore choices and directions of travel are more likely to be informed and non-judgmental.

Head of Year Talks

The team have been visiting Head of Year assemblies to feed back the ‘results of the ‘Staying Safe’ survey. Presentations have been tailored to each year group and it is hoped that the students understand that we take their answers seriously and that the survey is anonymous. There have already been some changes made as a result of some of the suggestions which students proposed.

Annual Safeguarding Audit

Each year, Bracknell Forest Safeguarding Schools requires us to undertake an annual audit of all of our policies and procedures. Our results are then reviewed. We received our report back at the beginning of February. It was very complementary about our work with only one action point listed – we had omitted to include a date! There is no room for complacency, however; the team will continue to strive for the highest standards and a mid-year review of the safeguarding annual development plan highlighted that we are on track to achieve our aims for the year.

Student Culture Champions

On Wednesday afternoon Chloe Whitelaw has been running a student group who are looking at culture within houses. Their focus throughout the Michaelmas term was bystander apathy. At the end of term they produced an excellent newsletter on the topic which was shared with all students and staff and this term they are running College assembly around this theme as well.

What’s Going On in Safeguarding in the UK?

The Children’s Society Slang Dictionary

This dictionary will support parents and teachers to better understand the language that young people use and to help support them. Even if you feel that the dictionary might not be relevant to your child, they will be exposed to the words online and particularly in chatrooms. How many did you know? The link is here and this page also has a useful Emoji dictionary as well.

National Pupil Safeguarding Review

In September 2022, Endurio (in partnership with The Key) launched the Pupil Safeguarding Survey. This was the first time a national survey has been undertaken and it was designed for schools so that they could see whether their policies and practices were working and which areas needed more attention or a robust review. The first report was published in February. It was a great opportunity to check our own survey results against national statistics. If you are interested in reading the national report, you can obtain a copy via this link here.

Children’s Commissioner Report – ‘A Lot of it is just abuse’ – Young People and Pornography

In January, the long awaited report from the Office of the Children’s Commissioner on pornography was published. The report draws together research from focus groups with teenagers aged 13-19 and a survey of 1000 young people aged 16-21. Ian Morris, our Head of Wellbeing, has paid close attention to it and has incorporated some of the findings and the highly useful information sheet into the 4th form wellbeing lesson on pornography. You can download the report from here. At the end of February The Guardian published a very interesting podcast on online misogyny and the link to pornography. You can listen here.

Andrew Tate

Tate was arrested at the end of December as part of investigation into human trafficking, rape and organised crime. In early January schools were concerned that his increased media profile could make his influence stronger than ever. Wellington sent out information about how to speak to the students about this important issue and are highly aware of the influence that he may have on boys and young men. Many commentators believe that Tate is grooming young men and those young people who are desperate for some sort of connection or who feel that they don’t quite ‘belong’ are particularly vulnerable. This is an area that we will continue to monitor.

If you would like to start a conversation around this with your child, The Day has some excellent resources and material. You can find them here

The BBC documentary, ‘The dangerous rise of Andrew Tate’ can be watched here.

What’s been on TV which is linked to safeguarding?

Each week, the safeguarding team sends out an email to staff which highlights a particular area of safeguarding including some questions to answer or scenarios to think about. There is also a ‘watch, listen and read’ section. The following TV programmes have all been listed over the last few months; watching a programme like the ones below can also be a good starting point for a conversation with your child about a specific topic as well.

Theme Programme

Online Safety – trading of nudes

Panorama – “The Secret World of Trading Nudes”

Online sexual harassment BBC documentary – “Emily Atack – Asking for it?”

Cyberbullying BBC documentary – “Jesy Nelson – Odd One Out”

Domestic Violence and abuse BBC 3 – “Abused by my Girlfriend”

Neurodiversity

Mental Health

Children Missing Education –documentary which follows 3 students who are struggling to get to school following lockdowns

The Social – “How We’re Wired”

My Life - “Marvellous Messy Minds”

Panorama – “Why Kids Miss School”

Child protection – where failures happen BBC Wales documentary – “Logan Mwangi – a boy betrayed”

If you have seen or listened to something which you would like to share with the safeguarding team, please do email Delyth (dal@wellingtoncollege.org.uk)

Parent Lanyards

As you know, we welcome parents on site and we are very unique in that we also allow parents to come into the V&A café to meet their children and other members of staff. In order to do this, we do require that if you are coming into the V&A you wear your PARENT LANYARD. This will enable the staff to identify who you are. Please do not be offended if a member of staff asks you to wear your lanyard – we need to be sure that everyone who is on site should be here and we want to keep your children safe!