At Chard Prep School, we are committed to safeguarding children.  It is the duty and responsibility of everyone to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.  We recognise the needs and wishes of every child and these will be put first.  Safeguarding children means protecting them from abuse or neglect.  Getting the right support in place as early as possible and creating an environment in which children and young people feel safe and healthy is our priority.  We all have a personal responsibility to notice when a child or young person may be at risk of harm and pass our concerns to someone who can act to protect them.

Safeguarding Statement

Operation Encompass

Operation Encompass is a unique Police and Education early intervention safeguarding partnership which ensures that a child’s school is informed, prior to the start of the next school day, that there has been a domestic abuse incident to which the child has been exposed, and which might then have an impact on them in school.

Each school is informed of all such incidents that police are called to, not just those where an offence can be identified or those which are graded as high risk. The partnership recognises that all domestic abuse incidents can be harmful to children. Information will only be shared with the school by the police where it is identified that a young person was present anywhere in the home. This knowledge allows the school to provide immediate early intervention through silent or overt support dependent upon the needs and wishes of the child.

A nominated member of staff, known as a Key Adult, has been trained to liaise with the police. At Chard Prep our Key Adult is the Designated Safeguarding Lead, Mrs Elmer. She will be able to use information that has been shared with her, in confidence, to ensure that the school makes provision for possible difficulties experienced by children or their families. The Key Adult will keep this information confidential and will only share it on a need-to-know basis, for instance, to teaching staff for the child. It will not be shared with other school students.

If you would like some more information about it, you can view this online at www.operationencompass.org