Safeguarding & Welfare

On this page, you will find the details of the Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) and the Deputy Designated Safeguarding Leads (DDSLs) and what to do if you ever have a safeguarding concern about your child or any other child here at Skegness Grammar School.

This page is designed to be a source of information about safeguarding for the community, parents and students - to help inform and educate everyone in our school community. Our Safeguarding Policy, visitor leaflets and parent/carer guides can be downloaded from the bottom of the page.

You will also find a number of links which will provide you with useful information about a range of safeguarding concerns and issues and this is updated on a regular basis.

The Safeguarding Team

The SGS Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) is:

Mr J Hunton – Executive Headmaster

The SGS Safeguarding Manager is:

Miss H McKenna

The Safeguarding Team is:

Mis Tia Walton – Attendance Welfare Officer

Mrs A Goodson – Attendance Welfare Officer

Mrs A Green – Pastoral Support

Mrs M Brant - Pastoral Support

Parents and members of the local community can contact the Safeguarding Team via the School’s telephone number or by email on SGS-Safeguarding@skegnessgrammar.co.uk

The Nominated Governors & Trust Leads with responsibility for safeguarding are:

- The governor for Safeguarding - James Dean

- Trust wide Safeguarding lead - Juliet Jaggs

- Localised Trust lead - Lauren Tubby

The SGS Designated Safeguarding Team consists of trained and qualified staff who are highly skilled and experienced in dealing with safeguarding issues. The poster pictured below is displayed in every classroom, office and in corridors around the school. This is to ensure that every member of the SGS community can report and discuss matters with trained staff. Parents and members of the local community can contact the Safeguarding Team via the School’s telephone number or by email on SGS-Safeguarding@skegnessgrammar.co.uk

Our Safeguarding Statement of Intent

Skegness Grammar School is committed to providing a safe, secure and respectful environment for all children, staff and visitors. We promote a child centred approach to wellbeing and safeguarding, ensuring that the individual rights and needs of the child are central to our decision making and actions. We foster an atmosphere of trust, respect and security by providing a caring, safe, inclusive and stimulating environment which promotes the social, moral, spiritual, cultural and physical development of all students.

We actively promote a climate in which children and adults are confident about sharing concerns about the wellbeing or safety of themselves or others. At Skegness Grammar School we treat all matters of safeguarding and wellbeing in a sensitive, respectful and professional manner. Staff at Skegness Grammar are trained in response and reporting procedures frequently and are aware of the processes for making referrals to the SGS Safeguarding Team, Children’s Social Care and the Police

Safeguarding Aims

The aims of our Safeguarding policy are Prevention, Protection and Support in line with Child Protection guidelines. The SGS safeguarding procedures ensures that we:

Support our students' development in ways that foster security, confidence and independence.
Raise the awareness and importance of recognising and reporting safeguarding, and of moral and professional responsibilities amongst all stakeholders including support and teaching staff, governors, students, visitors and parents.
Provide high quality training and awareness campaigns for staff, and to ensure that the SLT/DSL/DDSLs undertake appropriate training (including biannual level 3 training and safer recruitment training).
Provide a systematic means of monitoring all students, particularly those who are vulnerable or known to be ‘at risk’ of harm.
Emphasise the need for excellent communication between staff, students, parents and external agencies (including the Police, PREVENT duty teams, Social Services, Youth Offending teams and other key agencies and workers involved in supporting our students and families).
Develop, implement and review structured procedures within the school so that they are effective and can be understood and consistently followed by all members of the SGS community.
Maintain vigilance and an ‘it could happen here’ attitude, and that we build a holistic picture of each child’s needs by paying attention to each factor or piece of information.

Safer Schools Police Officers

We are proud to work with a number of different professionals and agencies, including the police. There are now over 450 Safer School Partnerships operating throughout England and Wales, with police officers and community support officers based in schools to work closely with staff and students.

Child Missing From Education

At SGS we have put in place appropriate safeguarding policies, procedures and responses for children who go missing from education, particularly for those with persistent absences.

All children, regardless of their circumstances, are entitled to a full-time education which is suitable to their age, ability, aptitude and any special educational needs they may have. Local authorities have a duty to establish, as far as it is possible to do so, the identity of children of compulsory school age who are missing education in their area.

It is essential that all staff are made aware of the signs to look out for and the individual triggers to be aware of when considering the risks of potential safeguarding concerns such as travelling to conflict zones, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), forced marriage and criminal exploitation.

All schools must inform their Local Authority of any student who fails to attend school regularly or has been absent without the school’s permission for a continuous period of 10 school days or more, at such intervals as are agreed between the school and the local authority. Download the DfE Children Missing Education guidance for local authorities here.

Child on Child Abuse Including Sexual Behaviour

At SGS we have a culture of safeguarding. The school does not tolerate any form of sexual harassment or violence. As per government guidance in 'Keeping Children Safe In Education 2023', Skegness Grammar School works on the assumption that sexual harassment and violence ‘could happen here' and insists that no member of our community ever treats sexual violence or harassment as 'banter' or 'a part of growing up'.

To ensure our culture of safeguarding is consistent and embedded throughout, Skegness Grammar School puts a series of proactive measures to reduce the risk of such incidents. Along with regular reinforcement, staff and student training and consistency, the key strategy is education. Specifically of appropriate behaviour through our PSHE/RSE programme.

Skegness Grammar School also ensures that staff and students are trained to ensure they can recognise potential signs of abuse and how to report them. Skegness Grammar School educates students to understand sexual harassment may appear in many forms, and all members of our community have a duty to report any possible sign of sexual harassment or violence. These may include but are not limited to:

Sexual comments, such as telling sexualised stories, making lewd comments, making sexualised remarks about clothing and or appearance and calling someone sexualised names.
Sexualised “jokes” or taunting.
Physical behaviour, such as; deliberately brushing against someone, interfering with someone’s clothes.
Online sexual harassment. This may be standalone, or part of a wider pattern of sexual harassment and/or sexual violence.
Consensual and non-consensual sharing of nudes and semi-nude images and/or videos.

Sexualised behaviour sits on a continuum with five stages:

appropriate – the type of sexual behaviour that is considered 'appropriate' for a particular child depends on their age and level of development.
inappropriate – this may be displayed in isolated incidents but is generally consensual and acceptable within a peer group.
problematic – this may be socially unexpected, developmentally unusual, and impulsive, but have no element of victimisation.
abusive – this often involves manipulation, coercion, or lack of consent.
violent – this is very intrusive and may have an element of sadism.

When the school is made aware of an alleged incident of sexual harassment or violence, we take every step to ensure the student making the disclosure feels supported. The school then completes a detailed investigation and works with our local safeguarding partners to arrive at a fair conclusion, before recording the incident and outcomes on our electronic records system 'Safeguard'.

Keeping Children Safe In Education (KCSIE)

The government publishes statutory guidance for schools on keeping children safe in education settings. See the guidance for school and college staff via this link.

Online Safety

The Think You Know website is created by the police for parents of children at secondary school. It contains useful information about:

what children are doing online.
how to talk to children about what they are doing online.
what risks your child might face.
what tools are there to help them stay safe.

Think You Know have also produced a Parent’s Guide to E-Safety and the following booklets to provide parents/carers with helpful information on how to explore and monitor their children’s apps.

In January 2018 the Department for Education issued new guidance on searching, screening and confiscation of electronic devices in school. Download the guidance here: Searching, screening and confiscation at school.

TikTok. We are also aware of the growth of TikTok, a very popular social media platform for young people.

Feel free to Download TikTok: What parents need to know, which has been produced by the Metropolitan Police and National Online Safety. The leaflet also details key safety tips for parents.

Internet Matters

At SGS we are aware that approximately 60% of children currently have their own social media profile. We want to ensure that the families of our KS3 students have the information they need to support and protect their children in regard to internet safety. To support you with this we have information from 'internetmatters.org' to guide you and provide information on how to keep your child safe online.

Within the document, there are hyperlinks to guide with:

Having a conversation
Agreeing boundaries
Putting yourself in control
Checking suitability etc.

There is a QR code at the bottom of the document that will lead you directly to the internet matters website. Open your phone camera so the QR code appears on the viewfinder and then click the yellow box. Here you will find more materials available to support you further.

Click the link below to access the internet matters guide.

Internet Matters Guide for Ages 11-13

Additional Sites That Can Offer Support

NSPCC - Keeping Children Safe Online

Internet Matters

Safer Internet

SGS and the Prevent Duty

Skegness Grammar School believes and actively supports the view that all students should be protected from radicalisation and extremism.

The PREVENT duty has two specific strategic objectives to safeguard our students against radicalisation, extremism and any actions or beliefs that are contrary to British values and Skegness Grammar School ethos.

Respond to the ideological challenge of terrorism and the threat we face from those who promote it.
PREVENT people from being drawn into terrorism and ensure that they are given appropriate advice and support.

Skegness Grammar School opposes all forms of extremism. We define ‘extremism’ as vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs.

The school works closely with the counter-terrorism referral programme “Channel”. The programme uses a multi-agency approach to identify and provide support to individuals who are at risk of being drawn into terrorism by:

identifying individuals at risk
assessing the nature and extent of that risk
developing the most appropriate support plan for the individuals concerned.

Further Guidance & Advice

SG Poster

Talking to your child about online sexual harassment: A guide for parents

As noted, sexual harassment can take place anywhere and at any time.

Please click HERE to download a copy of Talking to your child about online sexual harassment: A guide for parents, which supports parents in discussing online sexual harassment with their children.

Childline ‘Report, Remove’

Childline has released support for children of all ages to help remove nude images shared online. To get the imaged removed, visit the website.

The child will need to:

Select their age
Create a Childline account to receive updates on the report
Report the image or video to the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF)

The only information you will give to the IWF are the images, videos or URLs you report. There is space to add information such as where the image or video is on a webpage. Childline will never see what pictures and videos or URLs you share with the IWF. The only information the IWF shares with Childline apart from your case number is if they will take down your images or videos, and why.

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)

Female genital mutilation (FGM) comprises all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs. It is illegal in the UK and a form of child abuse with long-lasting harmful consequences. Professionals in all agencies, and individuals and groups in relevant communities, need to be alert to the possibility of a girl being at risk of FGM, or already having suffered FGM. Click here to download the FGM Booklet for Professionals and Families.

Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE)

Child sexual exploitation (CSE) involves exploitative situations, contexts and relationships where young people receive something (for example food, accommodation, drugs, alcohol, gifts, money or in some cases simply affection) as a result of engaging in sexual activities. Sexual exploitation can take many forms ranging from the seemingly ‘consensual’ relationship where sex is exchanged for affection or gifts, to serious organised crime by gangs and groups. What marks out exploitation is an imbalance of power in the relationship. The perpetrator always holds some kind of power over the victim which increases as the exploitative relationship develops. Sexual exploitation involves varying degrees of coercion, intimidation or enticement, including unwanted pressure from peers to have sex, sexual bullying including cyber bullying and grooming. However, it is also important to recognise that some young people who are being sexually exploited do not exhibit any external signs of this abuse. Visit the NSPCC website for more information about preventing abuse.

Guidance On Specific Safeguarding Issues

Expert and professional organisations are best placed to provide up-to-date guidance and practical support on specific safeguarding issues. Please visit www.nspcc.org.uk. Also available is the government guidance on the issues listed below via www.gov.uk