At Maidensbridge Primary School, we are all committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all children and young people within the our school grounds and beyond.

The school has a Child Protection Policy and Safeguarding children policy which can be read by visiting our Policies page on this website. Alternatively, we are happy to supply this document on request from the school office.

If you are concerned about a child, then you can come and speak to Mrs Thomas at anytime.

You can also speak to any of the Deputy Designated Safeguarding Leads for our school:

Mr Pearson

Mrs Morgan

Alternatively you can call Dudley Children’s Social Care.  During office hours call the children's services referral and advice service on 0300 555 0050 (9:00am – 5:00pm Mon-Fri).  For out of office hours, contact the Emergency Duty Team on 0300 555 8574 or in an emergency call 999.

If you contact Dudley safeguarding you will speak to a professional who will listen to your concerns. They may take a few details and might need to contact you again but your concern will be dealt with quickly and appropriately.

You do not need to provide your name or give contact details if you do not wish to do so.  Anonymous calls will not be ignored.

If you are a parent or carer, we hope you find the web links below useful.

What is safer recruitment?

Safer recruitment is a set of practices to help make sure your staff and volunteers are suitable to work with children and young people. It is a vital part of creating a safe and positive environment and making a commitment to keep children safe from harm. Safer recruitment should be a continuing process of improvement for every school, club, business or organisation whose work or services involve contact with children.

Safer recruitment procedures

Our policy for safer recruitment is part of our overall safeguarding policy and is a vital first step towards keeping the children at Maidensbridge Primary School who have contact with staff and volunteers safe. We have clear procedures to ensure that everyone who is involved with any form of recruitment knows how to follow them. Procedures ensure that staff and volunteers are recruited safely and fairly, and that children’s safety is being considered at every stage of the process.

The recruitment processes

Taking a planned and structured approach will help, minimise the risk of appointing someone unsuitable, ensure we select the right person for the role, make sure the process is fair and make sure there are records of the process for future reference.

Define the role

For any role working with children and young people, both the job description and the person specification highlights the importance of understanding safeguarding issues.

Advertising the role

Advertisements send out a clear safeguarding message. Every advert for a role that includes work with children includes a statement about our commitment to keeping children safe. Positions require a DBS records check.

Applicant information pack

An application pack ensures that people interested in applying for a role at Maidensbridge have all the information they need about our school and the advertised vacancy.

Self-disclosure form

A self-disclosure form gives candidates the opportunity to tell us confidentially about any unspent criminal convictions, child protection investigations or disciplinary procedures they have on their record. The role requires an enhanced criminal records check, so applicants are required to disclose any unprotected spent convictions and cautions. In England, Scotland and Wales, we can only ask for information about cautions or convictions which are not designated as ‘protected’ under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.

References. We ask applicants to provide the details of at least two referees and check references as part of our checks.

Interview.  Questions relate to items in the person specification and enable us to explore a candidate’s suitability to work with children, their attitude and their motivations for applying for the role.

During the interview candidates should show that they are able to:

1. establish and maintain professional boundaries and professional integrity, 2. establish and maintain relationships with children and 3. take action to protect a child.

Checking identity.

Check each candidate’s identity during the recruitment process. The first opportunity to do this is usually when the candidate attends an interview.