Safeguarding

Safeguarding is everybody's business.

Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Primary School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. The school is committed to creating and maintaining a safe learning environment for children and young people, identifying where there are child welfare concerns and taking action to address them, in partnership with families and other agencies. 

If you have any concerns with regard to this, please contact: 

 Mrs. Patricia Reilly, the chair of the governing body, is the governor responsible for safeguarding.

All of the named Safeguarding Officers have undertaken the relevant training. All child protection issues are dealt with in a confidential manner.

The Safeguarding Policy 2023 - 2024 is available here. (Opens in a new window)

Operation Encompass

Our school is part of a project, which is run between Cheshire West and Chester schools and Cheshire Police.  The project, called Operation Encompass, has been designed to provide early reporting of any domestic violence incidents that occur outside school, which might have an impact on a child in school. This is done through a phone call to school following an incident.

The project ensures that at least one member of the school staff, known as the Key Adult, is trained to liaise with the police and to use the information that has been shared, in confidence.

In this way, we aim to support each child who has been involved in, or witnessed, a domestic abuse incident.  The Key Adult at School Name is Louise Finlay, the headteacher. If he/she receives an Encompass call he/she will make sure that a person the child trusts is available to help - if the child needs this.  Most of the time this support is silent; keeping a careful eye on him or her and make sure the child has a calm school day. The confidential information is ordinarily not shared with all staff, just an agreement on how to help, if needed.

All schools have a duty to share any information with other organisations if they feel a child is at risk of being hurt. The Key Adult may contact other organisations.  This is described in our child protection policy.

The sharing of information from the Police allows the school to be ready to help your child straight away, and it means that parents are aware that the Key Adult knows that something has happened.  Parents can come and talk to our Key Adult.  The Key Adult can point you towards other people that can help.  Our aim is to support children and their families.

More information can be found here: http://www.operationencompass.org/