Safeguarding Statements
Ambler Primary School and Children’s Centre is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and expects all staff and volunteers to share its commitment.
We have a number of policies and procedures in place that contribute to this safeguarding commitment, including our child protection policy which can be viewed on this website.
Sometimes we may need to share information and work in partnership with other agencies, where there are concerns about a child’s welfare. We will ensure that our concerns about our pupils’ are discussed with parents/carers first, unless we have reason to believe that this would endanger the child’s welfare.
We actively support the Government’s Prevent Agenda to tackle radicalism and extremism.
The Designated Safeguarding Leads are Bridget Hradsky (Senior Assistant Headteacher) and Ciara Rush (Head of Children’s Centre) and the Deputy Safeguarding Lead is Sandeep McNicholl (Headteacher). The DSL team can be reached via dsl@ambler.islington.sch.uk. The governor with responsibility for safeguarding in our school is Soola Georgiou.
Islington Children’s Services Contact Team can be contacted on 020 7527 7400 or out of hours on 020 7527 0992 and via email at csctreferrals@islington.gov.uk
Child Friendly Safeguarding Statement
What is Safeguarding and Child Protection about?
At Ambler Primary School we respect all children and adults and help to protect you and keep you safe. We do our best to help children make good educational progress.
How does Ambler Primary School work to keep you safe?
All the teachers, teaching assistants and support staff provide a safe place for you to learn
We all know how to keep you and your friends safe, at home as well as at school
It is important for you to know where to get help if you are worried or unhappy about something.
The staff tell you how to keep yourself, and others, safe and that you recognise risks in different situations
We teach different subjects and many are linked to safeguarding. These include: PSHE, healthy eating, e-safety, road safety and assemblies.
We believe everyone has the right to feel safe, the right to learn and the right to respect
If you are worried or unhappy about something, please tell a member of staff
Need to talk?
You can talk to any adult in school if you need to, but Mrs Hradsky, Mrs McNicholl and Cíara will always be there for you, just tell them what’s worrying you.
If you don’t think you can tell someone in school or at home about any worries or concerns, you can call ChildLine on 0800 1111 who will listen to you and give you help and advice
If you are worried about something you have seen or heard online you can use these links:
Own It - A place to help you boss your life online - Own It - BBC
Child on Child Abuse Including Protected Characteristics Statement
What is it?
Peer on peer abuse is unwanted behaviour which a person finds offensive, humiliating, hurtful or behaviour that makes them feel intimidated. It can happen in isolation or can take place alongside other forms of discrimination. This form of behaviour can take place in person and also online.
Keeping Children Safe in Education (2024) outlines that this unwanted behaviour (that will not be tolerated at Ambler) could materialise as:
- Spoken or written words
- Offensive / hurtful emails or comments on online platforms.
- Images or graffiti
- Physical gestures
- Jokes and banter
- Control in relationships
- Physical abuse (hitting, kicking, shaking, biting, hair pulling, or otherwise causing physical harm (this may include an online element which facilitates, threatens and/or encourages physical abuse)
- Causing someone to engage in sexual activity without consent, such as forcing someone to strip, touch themselves sexually, or to engage in sexual activity with a third party (This also includes inappropriate pictures of themselves or others);
- Upskirting, which typically involves taking a picture under a person’s clothing without them knowing, which causes the victim humiliation, distress or alarm.
- Sexting (known as youth produced sexual imagery) and
- Initiation/hazing type violence and rituals (this could include activities involving harassment, abuse or humiliation used as a way of initiating a person into a group and may also include an online element).
To minimise the risks of children being subject to child-on-child abuse of any kind, Ambler has established a palpably empathetic and inclusive ethos underpinned by a carefully planned curriculum, robust Safeguarding and Child Protection and Anti-bullying policies, as well as a trauma-informed Positive Behaviour Policy. We have also adopted the ISCP’s protocol for managing child on child sexual harassment and abuse.
At Ambler, our teaching of all aspects of safeguarding within the curriculum includes reassurance that trusted adults will always act with discretion when a child makes a disclosure; however, children are taught that this cannot be promised if someone is in danger or unsafe.
Ambler staff and children have developed a charter that outlines our commitment to creating a safe, secure environment in which children feel able to share their thoughts, feelings and experiences including those which have made them feel uncomfortable or unsafe in a relationship. This sits alongside our digital charter which supports children’s understanding of how to stay safe online.
Ambler’s Healthy Relationship Charter
If children find themselves in position where they are faced with child on child abuse, including bullying or any kind of discrimination they will talk to someone:
- A teacher
- Senior Leader / Headteacher
- Any member of staff they trust
- A parent
- A friend
- Safeguarding Leads
- Childline
At Ambler, children know that they must tell someone they trust whenever they feel uncomfortable or unsafe in any relationship or social context.
At Ambler, children will never be made to feel they are causing a problem and that their concerns are valid.
At Ambler, trusted adults will:
- listen carefully
- not judge children making a disclosure
- always be honest
- inform the Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) team.
The Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) will:
- Review incident and identify if other pupils were involved
- Decide appropriate sanctions and/ or support based on the safeguarding, anti-bullying, behaviour and wellbeing policies
- Inform parents/ carers of children on both sides of an incident
- Where appropriate, contact children’s social care and/or the police as the children could be at risk of harm
- Review school procedures and policies regularly to develop best practice.