Safeguarding is a vital part of all we do in school.

Safeguarding is everyone's responsibility.

If you have immediate concerns a child is at risk of significant harm, please contact Children's Social Care on 0300 123 6720 or contact the police.

Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy

The school Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy (September 2025) can be accessed by clicking the link below. Reference is made within this policy to a number of related policies and these can be found by clicking on the links to relevant policies below. (Please note there are a small number of hyperlinks to external agency documents within the main policy that will not work from this pdf document - they are all 'school use only' documents but anyone wishing to see them should enquire at the school office)

We ensure that children are safe while they are on site with us or out and about on school activities while at the same time providing support for families and children where a higher level of need exists.

DSLs (Designated Safeguarding Leads)

If you have any concerns about the safety / well being of any of our pupils please speak to the Designated Safeguarding Lead (Paul Bowden)  head@slyne-with-hest.lancs.sch.uk or the Deputy DSL (Katherine Waterhouse) k.waterhouse@slyne-with-hest.lancs.sch.uk 

School telephone number: (01524) 823505

Outside school hours in an emergency please use the number at the top of this page.

Statutory training and checks

• We ensure that all adults working in school with the children or who have any access to the children have relevant DBS checks in place. The school maintains a single central record, which records all adults (teachers / TAs/ welfare staff / governors / volunteers etc) and the checks that have been carried out.
• All school staff have annual safeguarding training using the LCC approved training and the DSL and deputy DSL attend bi-annual training.
• There are always at least 2 governors, who have attended the safer recruitment training, on any interview panel ensuring all appointments are carried out with due regard to safeguarding.

We work closely with other organisations (e.g. Social Services/ Child and Family and Well being team etc) to provide support for families with a greater level of need.

We have due regard to the contents of all the key safeguarding documentation - see attachments below.

A safe school day on and off site

• We ensure that the school site is a safe environment - all gates are locked after the children have entered in the morning and then are only opened again just before the end of the day for collection. 
• All visitors need to report to the school office to gain entry to school where they will be asked to sign in and receive a school visitors badge. At the end of the visit they need to sign out to indicate that they have left the premises. Officers of LCC / School Music Service etc should wear their own badges / lanyards during their visits.
• We ensure all educational visits and off-site activities have a full risk assessment using the Lancashire Evolve system.

Operation Encompass

  We are an Operation Encompass school. 

Operation Encompass is a safeguarding partnership between the police and schools in the UK to provide early support for children who have experienced domestic abuse. When police respond to a domestic abuse incident involving a child's home, they share this information with a designated key adult at the child's school before the start of the next school day. This allows the school to offer immediate and discreet support to the child, helping to mitigate the long-term impact of the abuse