The child protection & safeguarding handbook for schools

Schools play a critical role in keeping children safe from harm, although their importance to the child protection system has not always been recognised. Protecting children used to be seen as the preserve of social workers but events in recent years have brought the school’s role into sharp focus. Teachers and other school staff do not need to be told how important they are. They have always cared, always offered support, always noticed when things were going wrong in a child’s life, and always tried to do their best for their pupils. As the only universal service to have consistent, daily contact with the nation’s children it is remarkable that the school’s contribution to child protection took so long to be formally recognised. Inevitably, there was opposition from some teaching professionals to the formal expansion of their role to include safeguarding and child protection. After all, teachers are trained to teach, and social workers are trained to care. However, the 21st century teaching profession has come to openly acknowledge the fact that children’s capacity to take advantage of the learning opportunities provided for them is inextricably linked to the prevailing stability of their physical and mental health. The principal goal of a school is to teach but, in order to demonstrate equality of opportunity for all pupils, it is necessary to remove, or at least reduce, the barriers that impede learning. Children cannot concentrate on learning if their lives are disrupted by abuse and fear. In short, safer children are more successful learnersfund code A.ED.SE