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By Liz Counsell, HMI
Blog post |
Inspecting a school’s safeguarding culture
We’re totally committed to ensuring that every child in Wales has the right to feel safe, to be looked after properly and to have a say in what happens to them.
This year, we’re piloting a new approach to inspection with a stronger focus on safeguarding arrangements. We’ll take a closer look at a provider’s culture of safeguarding and wellbeing, including when learners are on-site, off-site and learning online.
This year, we’re piloting a new approach to inspection with a stronger focus on safeguarding arrangements. We’ll take a closer look at a provider’s culture of safeguarding and wellbeing, including when learners are on-site, off-site and learning online.
Safeguarding and inspection
In every part of our work, we place safeguarding children and young people and their wellbeing above all other needs and interests.
We’ve worked closely with other inspectorates on our ‘Joint Inspection of Child Protection Arrangements’, to pilot a new joint way of evaluating safeguarding in a local authority area.
We also recently published a report ‘‘We don’t tell our teachers’ Experiences of peer-on-peer sexual harassment among secondary school pupils in Wales. The report looks at the incidence of peer-on-peer sexual harassment in the lives of secondary-aged young people and reviews the culture and processes that help protect and support young people in secondary schools in Wales. In the supporting resources we published with the report, there are links to useful guidance and research to support an effective culture of safeguarding. A key guidance document for schools is the Welsh Government’s Keeping Learners Safe.
All education providers, including independent schools and colleges, have statutory duties to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. During our inspections, we play an important role in evaluating a provider’s safeguarding arrangements.
Our new approach to inspection ensures that inspectors find out how well staff and governors promote a strong safeguarding culture within their community and how well they understand and promote the school’s safeguarding approaches.
What will change…
- There will be a stronger focus on evaluating the safeguarding culture. This will take priority over simply providing evidence of having appropriate policies in place
- Inspectors will look at the behaviour of learners and staff and how this helps promote a strong safeguarding culture
- Inspectors will talk with a wider range of learners representing different groups, in informal and formal situations to get their opinion on the provider’s safeguarding arrangements
- The inspection report will contain more detail about safeguarding including describing when safeguarding practices are particularly strong or where there are causes for concern
- An effective culture of safeguarding starts with leaders and we will reflect their impact on safeguarding arrangements when we report on leadership and management.
What will stay the same…
We’ll:
- begin each inspection by looking at the provider’s self-evaluation of its safeguarding arrangements
- consider information from the pre-inspection questionnaires from staff, parents, learners and governors
- consider the arrangements for identifying and supporting children in need or at risk of significant harm, and whether or not all staff know what to do if they have concerns about a learner
- check that all staff have undertaken a suitable level of safeguarding training
- evaluate the effectiveness of the arrangements to promote and support an anti-bullying culture and check how well providers respond to, record and address any alleged incidents relating to bullying
- judge how well a provider keeps pupils safe from the dangers of radicalisation and exploitation
- consider the general security of the buildings and site and how leaders promote awareness of risks to pupils’ wellbeing
- check the provider’s procedures to ensure the suitability of staff and others who are in contact with learners
- continue to refer any safeguarding concerns to our internal safeguarding officers
- continue to issue a wellbeing letter to a provider if there are significant concerns over an aspect of health and safety or safeguarding.
All members of the inspection team will gather information to support the judgement on the school’s culture of safeguarding. Safeguarding will be discussed during every team meeting.
Next steps
In spring 2022, we’ll be piloting the new draft inspection arrangements in a range of different schools and PRUs across Wales. We will use the findings from this work to finalise the new framework.
Read more about our new inspection arrangements and our supplementary guidance for inspecting safeguarding in schools and PRUs.
Liz Counsell
Liz Counsell is an HMI specialising in primary, independent and local authority education. She is also a safeguarding lead officer She has been in education for over 35 years, previously a headteacher in three Cardiff primary schools. When she is not inspecting you will find her watching Cardiff City or playing tennis.
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