All children have the right to be safe from harm and abuse. Hanover Primary School is committed to providing an environment where children can play, learn, develop and achieve and where they are safeguarded and enabled to tell or communicate if they are being harmed in some way.
Safeguarding is about keeping children safe from various forms of abuse. It is one of our highest priorities at Hanover. We believe that safeguarding is a responsibility of our whole community. As a parent or carer, you can play a vital role in helping us educate your children about staying safe. By acting on any concerns you may have about other children, you can help us safeguard all our pupils. This page is intended to help you do that.
Our key messages to you are:
Parents at our school often express the worry that reporting a concern to social services will lead to dramatic action, including children being removed from their families. This type of action is extremely rare and occurs only when children are in very serious, obvious danger. In Islington, the Children’s Social Care Team receive around 1000 referrals a month. 40% of these are found to be groundless and no action is taken. 40% lead to some extra support going to the family. This may well be financial, housing or health support. Only 20% lead to direct action by social services.
Social services are very keen to keep children with their families. They work with parents to help them care for their children well, when there are problems preventing this. The first steps they take when they receive a referral are almost always to simply investigate. Often they find nothing wrong. If this is the case, no action is taken and there is no negative record kept that can affect a parents’ job prospects or standing in the community.
However, some children are very badly treated by the adults who are meant to care for them. There is no particular community at our school in which child abuse might not happen. At Hanover, we act on every concern we have. Many of the concerns we raise turn out to be groundless. However, some don’t. We believe that it is vital we take every concern seriously. This is the only way to ensure that nothing slips through the net and that children who need help, get it. We ask you to take the same approach.
The following tools will help you understand more about what abuse is, how to spot it and what to do if you have a concern:
How can the school help? – If you have a concern about a child, even if they not at our school, we can give you advice and help you report it. We will gladly see you in private if you want. Come into school and speak to our office or contact us via email or phone. Alternatively, come to one of our parent sessions on safeguarding. You can download a copy of our Child Protection and Safeguarding policy on our Policies page here.