Safeguarding legislation and government guidance defines safeguarding as:

• Protecting children from maltreatment 
• Preventing impairment of children’s health or development
• Ensuring that children are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care
• Taking action to enable all children and young people to have the best outcomes 

Safeguarding includes:

Safeguarding is underpinned by core working practices including child protection, health care plans, health and safety, site security, safety on school trips, anti-bullying work and so much more. The Trust’s central team plays a key role in training, leading and auditing safeguarding across the Trust schools. We work very closely with our Local Authority’s to ensure that we are fully joined up in our approach and that we develop a strong and pervasive safeguarding culture in every aspect of school life.

Each school publishes its own safeguarding policy, outlining local arrangements and noting all key safeguarding staff.

The Trust adheres to the following three DFE safeguarding documents:

• Working Together to Safeguard Children
• Keeping Children Safe in Education
• The Prevent Duty 

The Trust and its schools have a suite of Safeguarding documents which are reviewed regularly and can be found on this website.

All our staff, whatever their role, receive annual Child Protection and Safeguarding update training and are aware of the procedures for passing on concerns within school. If any members of the school or local community have concerns about the welfare of a child in one of our schools, please pass them on to the named colleagues at the applicable school.

At Chaffinch Brook School our Designated Safeguarding leads are: Abbie Vernum and  Ilaria Azzopardi. 

Our deputy Designated Safeguarding leads are: Mwamba Nkole and Wendy Hartill

Please find Chaffinch Brook's Safeguarding Policy and the Designated Safeguarding Leads' contact details below:

You can contact the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) team by making a referral. The MASH can offer you support and advice, as well as putting families in touch with other services.

If you are a member of the public, you can make the referral anonymously if you are concerned that calling MASH could put you in a difficult position.

If you are a professional and you are unsure about whether or not to make a referral, or which service will best help the family and safeguard the child, you can:

• refer to the Croydon Threshold document on the Croydon Safeguarding Children Partnership website or speak to your designated safeguarding lead in the first instance

If the child has an allocated social worker or key worker, or you need to enquire if the child has an allocated social worker or key worker, please contact the worker or their team directly, or call on 0208 726 6000 and press Option 5.

The following link to the GOV.UK webpage for reporting child abuse to your local council may offer furher guidence:

https://www.gov.uk/report-child-abuse-to-local-council

Online:

An online MASH referral may be a more appropriate option, which will be actioned the following working day.

Referrals to Croydon MASH should be made via the safeguarding referral form completed online by the DSL or person raising concerns.

If it is not appropriate to call 999, but you have an urgent safeguarding concern that requires a same day response, you can contact the MASH team in the following ways:

During office hours, Monday to Friday, 9pm to 5pm:

Call the MASH on 0208 255 2888. The referral, if appropriate, will be accepted over the telephone and you will need to follow this up by completing the online referral form within 24 hours.

Out of Hours: 

Call the Emergency Duty Team (EDT) on 0208 726 6400. Press 5 for Children’s Services and listen to the message until you hear ‘If your call is an emergency, please wait and your call will be transferred’.

The call operator will take your details and pass the message on to the EDT social worker to respond. This may not be immediately, dependent on other calls into EDT. EDT responds to any urgent child safeguarding concerns that cannot wait until the next working day. 

If you struggle to get through to the out of hours number, please email: SSD-EMERGENCY-DUTY-TEAM@croydon.gov.uk.

Non-Examination Assessment Policy 

Exams Equality Policy

Exams Complaints and Appeals Procedure Policy 

Procedure for Appealing Internal Assessment Decisions Policy 

Internal appeals procedure (Reviews of results and appeals) Policy 

Complaints and appeals procedure exams form

Internal appeals procedure form