Welcome to the Safeguarding in Education  briefing note for term 6. We know that this is a busy term for you all and hope that your children have a successful and enjoyable final term of this academic year. 

As we prepare the summer holidays we may be doing some preparation work for some of your more vulnerable children around ensuring safety and welfare. Please do remember to:

• share with us any updates of contacts but more importantly do provide an out of office contacts where possible - Forms to notify the Local Authority of key contacts within your settings. (bristolsafeguardingineducation.org)
• make sure you are aware of any child protection conferences and ensure cover has been arranged - Child Protection Conferences during the school holidays (bristolsafeguardingineducation.org)
• share and cascade the new NSPCC service Building Connections: help young people tackle loneliness. Building Connections is a new service designed to support young people who are feeling lonely. You can refer young people up to the age of 19 to work with a befriender, who’ll help them to find their way through loneliness. Build support. Build confidence. Build connections.

Contents:

National guidance updates and consultations:

• Keeping Children Safe in Education 2024 draft  
• Emergency planning and response for education, childcare, and children’s social care settings and more dates for Critical incidents training (new date).
• RSHE briefing and consultation

Included in this briefing:

• Prevent Training – FREE CPD  - including a 5 min read - Hope not hate – the next generation of migrant hunters.
• Operation Bond – Proms and End of Year Events – Action required
• DSL Training  2025-25- plus one more mop up course for this academic year - Event : SET-DSL-refresher-training-virtual-27-and-28-June
• Local guidance published- Supporting children and young people from Black and Minoritised Communities & self evaluation form

Keeping Children Safe in Education 2024 – Draft Guidance                                                                                              

The DfE has now published the latest ‘for information’ version of Keeping Children Safe in Education ready for September 2024. This guidance does not come into force until September 2024,  the 'for information' version may be subject to further changes. Sometimes the wording gets revised and paragraph numbers may be altered, so do be cautious about making changes to policies until the final version comes out. In particular, there are two specific areas likely to be subject to change: preventing radicalisation, where new definitions are coming into force; and the guidance about gender-questioning children. The statutory consultation on RSHE may also have an impact.

• A summary is included in the Table of changes (Annex F)
• Andrew Hall (freelance safeguarding consultant) has created a free webinar explaining the changes: https://event.webinarjam.com/channel/kcsie2024info

More substantive changes are anticipated from the 2025 version following the public consultation ‘ Safeguarding children in schools and colleges’ a call for evidence - Safeguarding children in schools and colleges - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). This closes on June 20^th 2024.

Emergency Planning and response for education, child care Guidance Update

The government has published the updated version of Emergency planning and response for education, childcare, and children’s social care settings - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) guidance with information on emergency alerts, building local partnerships and recording attendance for remote education. Also added links to additional resources, templates, and checklists. You may also find this and School and college security - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) helpful to refer to when reviewing your Critical Incident response plan. All education, childcare, and children’s social care settings should have emergency plans in place. Your plan should explain how you would respond if you needed to take any temporary actions in the event of an emergency, major event, or critical incident.

Due to demand, we are pleased to let you know that we are able to offer and additional free Critical Incident Training Event for Senior Leaders on 9th July (8.45am-16.00pm) at The Park Centre. Please book onto the course using this link Event : SET--Responding-to-Critical-Incidents---Guidance-for-Senior-Leaders-in-Schools-and-Settings - 25778 (event-booking.org.uk). We will look to schedule further dates for the next academic year.

RSHE Briefing and Consultation

You will have seen media reports that the Department for Education has published its draft updated statutory guidance on relationships, sex and health education (RSHE).

New RSHE guidance: What it means for sex education lessons in schools – The Education Hub (blog.gov.uk) highlights the governments vision from what the revisions may mean in terms of practice. 

The standard consultation period for such guidance is twelve weeks, after which the government will need to consider submitted evidence before publishing final guidance at some point thereafter and providing schools with adequate time to implement the changes. The consultation can be accessed here and it concludes on the 11 July 2024.

• A colleague Natalie McGrath – PSHE coordinator for Staffordshire has kindly compiled a comparison sheet to cross reference current guidance and proposed updates around the curriculum learning - Green - where there are no changes, Amber - where there are some changes to wording or there is a recommendation about age suitability,  Red - where the outcome is new.

• New resources are available to promote healthy relationships within the wider context of a whole-school approach. In partnership with Life Lessons, the NSPCC have  created a framework that will support leaders to implement a comprehensive whole-school approach to sex and relationships. You can access the resources for free by completing a short form.

Prevent Training Offer  - FREE CPD

The Safeguarding in Education Team are offering the following training and support sessions over the next academic year. Funding has been covered by Home Office.

• General Prevent Awareness Sessions. These are suitable for whole staff awareness training and may be delivered as part of an INSET day or twilight session. To book a session please fill in and submit the form on the Bespoke Training page on our website.

• Catch- up sessions. These are sessions provided online for new members of staff who may have missed your Prevent Awareness session or need to complete their training as part of their staff induction. These will be running 3 times a year and can be booked on via the learning platform.
  • 9 October 9.00am  – 11.00am
  • 14 January 1.30pm - 3.30 pm
  • May 9.00am – 11.00am

• DSL Prevent Workshops. Following feedback gathered at the DSL networks we have decided that we will run a series of workshops rather than training as many of you have already accessed . The workshops will be an opportunity to review your Prevent risk assessments, consider where to gather information on the local picture and provide networking and peer supervision opportunities. Wednesday 10th July 9.45 - 12.00 @ City Hall.

• 5 min read - Hope Not Hate – the next generation of migrant hunters  - These are tech-savvy videographers who cut their teeth in the “auditing” scene, who are now moving into “migrant hunting” to maximise their audiences. Combining improved video production with a desire for confrontation, they are changing the look and feel of the movement. The Next Generation of Migrant Hunters? – HOPE not hate

Operation Bond – Proms and End of Year Events – Action required

There has been a hiatus in Op Bond meetings due to changes in Police staffing. We are looking to restart these meetings as part of a wider development of work to improve information sharing to and from the education sector around community safety.

As in previous years, we are minded that some settings have experienced disruptions and extra familial harm during proms and end of year celebrations. In preparation please complete the survey if you feel there is likely to be additional vulnerability. Information will be shared with our neighbourhood police teams so that they are aware of upcoming events and can resource support accordingly.

DSL Training for the new academic year 2024/25

DSL new to role and DSL refresher training for 2024/25 is now available to book through our training webpages. 

• Newly appointment Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSLs) training course (bristolsafeguardingineducation.org)
• Refresher training course for Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSLs) (bristolsafeguardingineducation.org)

Please be minded we have had a few settings requesting more urgent bookings – we have arranged for one more DSL Refresher course this year. Event : SET-DSL-refresher-training-virtual-27-and-28-June - 25504 (event-booking.org.uk)

As in previous correspondence we have listened to your feedback around navigating our training booking platform and have commissioned Trading With Schools to manage bookings from September 2024. Please note we have modified our course prices to reflect increasing costs of room hire and providing refreshments. 

Local guidance published- Supporting children and young people from Black and Minoritised Communities

The SEND Guidance: Supporting children and young people from Black and Minoritised Communities (pdf, 1.14 MB) aims to support educational settings in Bristol to understand what they need to consider when working with children and young people (CYP) from Black and Minoritised Communities with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

The guidance is based on discussions with parent carers of CYP with SEND from Black and Minoritised Communities in the city and includes:

• statistics about SEND in Black and Minoritised Communities in Bristol
• the experiences of families from Black and Minoritised Communities
• implementing the graduated response
• effective communication with parent carers
• inclusive settings which understand and welcome CYP and families from Black and Minoritised Communities
• support for parent carers

The guidance also includes a setting self-evaluation form (docx, 20 KB).