Culture

Key elements of an effective safeguarding culture

The purpose of this section is to provide an overview of arrangements for effective safeguarding in educational settings. It provides a number of key questions for school leaders to consider in evaluation of the culture that exists within their setting.

Compliance with statutory guidance is crucial as was outlined in the previous section, however educational settings need to have a culture of safeguarding.

Culture is often described as something which is intangible, that said a visitor, or a prospective parent can walk into an educational setting and know immediately whether they want to be there or not. The same applies to the pupils and the staff. They will tell you that they can 'feel' the culture.

That culture which is 'felt' is often the result of numerous components that come together, including academic, physical, social and emotional environment. Culture is generally not conscious to the members within the community. Effective leaders realise that they can influence and cultivate a positive culture in their school.

Policies are a driver for change and set out the expectations within the setting however effective compliance can only be achieved when policies are embedded into the culture of the school, so that staff understand what they are required to do and then actually do it. The behaviours then become embedded and integral to the culture of the setting.

The diagram below demonstrates the importance of a safeguarding culture as it should permeate through safeguarding practice. This includes governance, record keeping, curriculum, listening to children, policies, training and induction.

Leading a safeguarding culture

The following information is taken from the Safeguarding Network: Leading a safeguarding culture (opens new window).

Values

Safeguarding is everyone's responsibility - but while this might exist in your policy, is the understanding value the same at governance, leadership or staff levels and in your student group.

Cultural style

When thinking about safeguarding cultures within schools it is interesting to reflect on the differing priorities.

Culture is a significant factor, although individuals within any culture are also shaped by their own history and beliefs. Not everyone will hold the same ideas, the same values or the same priorities.

• How are the conflicting cultural styles of safeguarding and learning managed within your school culture?
• Is there a recognition that safeguarding requires a different kind of response?
• How does your safeguarding team/SLT bridge this gap, respond to the challenge that may bring and provide the time and resource to respond?

Strategy

While safeguarding work is bound by much guidance and procedure, healthy organisational development is underpinned by effective strategy. This sets direction and priorities, keeps people together, informs decision-making and ensures everyone is on the same page (Wilkinson, 2011 (opens new window)). Keeping Children Safe in Education (opens new window) requires a child protection policy, but a safeguarding strategy captures the range of safeguarding requirements (opens new window), reflects on contextual safeguarding (opens new window) issues, features of the student group (such as age, development, culture), your staff group, the wider organisational priorities and the history of your setting in addressing abuse or neglect to create an improvement track you can support and monitor.

• Do you understand the strengths and development areas for safeguarding in your setting?
• Does your setting have a safeguarding strategy?
• What are your key development goals and how will you know when you meet them?
• Does your strategy align with your setting's values, structure, skills and resources?

Structure

This explores how staff and resources are organised in your setting, perhaps through a structure chart or similar. Under Keeping Children Safe in Education (opens new window) the Designated Safeguarding Lead must be an "appropriate senior member of staff, from the school or college leadership team". We talk about safeguarding being everyone's responsibility, but how is this understood in terms of connection to governors, the head teacher or SLT? What are the boundaries around roles? Does the safeguarding team have sufficient authority when working alongside teachers and other parts of the organisation? Smaller settings have an advantage here: the larger your organisation the more time should be spent thinking about this communication.

Supervision is vital and highlighted within the inspection framework, "Ofsted Inspecting safeguarding in early years, education and skills settings (opens new window)" (2022).

Designated Safeguarding Leads should ensure there is a structure in place to ensure everyone in direct work roles has regular supervision, that informal supervision opportunities are available but approached with the same rigour around recording and decision-making, and that lines of accountability are clear and effective. Supervision should demonstrably improve the safety and welfare of children, enhance staff skills, compliance and approach, and contain the emotional aftermath of working with trauma. DSLs and head teachers must also consider their own supervision arrangements, including the need to seek expert external support.

• Is the structure of your safeguarding team clearly set out?
• How does the safeguarding team operate in relation to other parts of the organisation?
• Is everyone clear about their role? Do they understand the limits of their competence and authority?
• How does your setting communicate about safeguarding, both explicitly and implicitly
• Do all relevant staff receive effective, regular supervision?

Systems

These are the daily activities, procedures and resources you use to get the job done. This begins with the safeguarding policy which should set out what people should do if they're worried about a child. What does this communicate to parents, staff or regulators about the importance of safeguarding in your organisation?

The inspection framework (opens new window) has an improved emphasis on risk assessment and response - have staff had training in undertaking a risk assessment? Does their approach link to your local safeguarding children partnership threshold tool? Does the safeguarding team have access to up to date guidance on assessing the level of risk and the best response to neglect (opens new window), child criminal exploitation (CCE) (opens new window) or fabricated or induced illness (opens new window)?

Recording should be a tool for analysis and communication. Sometimes records can be disorganised, taking time to manage and creating safeguarding or data protection risks. Electronic systems can streamline this approach saving time, improving analysis and ensuring information about children is indexed and secure. It is still important to consider how you integrate these systems into your organisational culture - structuring the records to align to your school or college structure, ensuring prompts support safe practice rather than staff "feeding the machine" and that you use the reporting and analysis functions to improve safeguarding across your setting.

• Is your child protection policy up to date, is it used and is it effective?
• Is there a consistent and effective risk mitigated approach to case management?
• Do staff have access to safeguarding knowledge, resources and audit tools?
• Is your recording structured and clear?
• Do you use your records to improve safety and welfare of students?

Styles

How leaders in your organisation approach safeguarding will affect the way in which the task is carried out. The attention to safeguarding by school leaders will influence the emphasis on a "culture of vigilance" throughout the organisation "where safeguarding is an important part of everyday life in the setting". Whether leaders listen to staff feeds into whether you have a listening organisation and staff and young people's confidence about coming forward with their concerns.

It's complicated, but it is about helping everyone keep a strong focus on children and young people and their individual experiences, having a structured approach that is pro-active rather than always reactive, and ensuring the school are able to deliver on your safeguarding vision.

• How is safeguarding fully owned at governance and senior leadership levels?
• Do you understand your safeguarding culture, where it is strong and where it needs attention?
• What are your key goals? How are leaders shaping and influencing practice towards these?

Staff

This area explores the general competence people bring to safeguarding work and the roles they hold. We've widened this to think about relevant staff in other agencies.

Do your staff have sufficient time to become familiar with the range of safeguarding procedures?

Are there any specialisms required or roles not held at present?

When a safeguarding issue arises this can consume hours of time - how does the school balance this with the core task of educating all the children?

• Do you have the staff time to commit to the safeguarding task?
• Are there vacancies and how are these being covered?
• Are you effective in developing an interagency team around the child approach?

Skills

Schools, colleges and early years settings are required to ensure "there are clear and effective arrangements for staff development and training... at every level" and for staff to be able to "demonstrate knowledge" in their work with children and young people (Ofsted Inspecting safeguarding in early years, education and skills settings (2022).

Keeping Children Safe in Education (opens new window) has over forty different topic areas that staff should have read about in Part 1 and Annex B. The emphasis on implementation and impact rather than simply intent is clear in the inspection framework (opens new window): staff must be able to apply this knowledge to identify young people at risk of harm and take the right action to keep them safe. This presents a significant challenge to DSLs, to ensure their knowledge is sufficient around each subject and to design CPD for their teams.

Safeguarding is an area where people often lack confidence. Creating opportunities for staff to practice their safeguarding skills is one way to build confidence, such as through scenario-based discussions. This also creates an opportunity to review the quality of practice - did the team handle the scenario well?

• Do you have a clear and effective arrangements for safeguarding learning for your staff?
• Do staff feel confident in recognising abuse or neglect?
• Are staff always skilled in responding to concerns about abuse and neglect?
• Is the DSL suitably skilled and supported to undertake their role?
• What strengths do you have in dealing with safeguarding issues? Where are the gaps?
• How do you monitor and assess the skills of your staff, your DSL and your governors?
• What have you learned from safeguarding incidents in your setting to prevent recurrence?

Ineffective Safeguarding

The following are examples of what ineffective safeguarding might include.

• Safeguarding allegations about staff members are not being handled appropriately
• Children, pupils and students or particular groups of children, pupils and students do not feel safe in school/the setting
• Children, pupils and students have little confidence that the school/setting will address concerns about their safety, including risk of abuse
• For schools: pupils are frequently missing from school (including for part of the school day), but this is not addressed appropriately by staff
• Incidents of bullying or prejudiced and discriminatory behaviour are common

When safeguarding is ineffective, this is likely to lead to an inadequate leadership and management judgement.

Inspecting safeguarding in early years, education and skills

Consider these key questions:

• How do children feel? Can they identify a trusted adult? Are they protected from all types of discrimination?
• Are policies effective and well understood by staff children and carers?
• Are records of a high quality and timely? Have these concerns been appropriately shared?
• Do children who go missing from the setting receive well co-ordinated response that reduces the harm or risk of harm to them?
• Have any risks associated with children been identified and shared? Have those concerns informed risk assessment and planning?
• Do adults understand that children's poor behaviour may be a sign that they are suffering harm or that they have been traumatised by abuse?
• Are there clear and effective arrangements for staff development and training in respect of the protection and care of children and learners?