Agenda item

Joint report of the Town Clerk and the Headmaster of the City of London Freemen’s School (copy attached).

The Board considered a joint report of the Town Clerk and the Headmaster of the City of London Freemen’s School reviewing the School’s Child Protection Policy incorporating additional guidance from the Department for Education on safeguarding and staff recruitment.

The Deputy Chairman highlighted that this policy was common to all three City Schools with the exception of references to Surrey as the Freemen’s School local authority.

The Deputy Head went on to report that very little had changed since the Board had last reviewed the policy. She went on to highlight some changes regarding terminology (social care vs. social services etc) and the replacement of the old CRB checks with the DBS checks which were to be portable between organisations.

The Board were informed that it was recommended that the phrase ‘Child Protection’ be replaced with ‘Safeguarding’ and that this document should therefore be entitled ‘Safeguarding Policy’ in the future if the other two City Schools were in agreement.

A Governor requested that all acronyms be spelt out in the first instance in future Policies.

In response to a question regarding paragraph 8.2 of the policy, the Headmaster confirmed that all allegations of abuse were dealt with in this way.

In response to a question regarding paragraph 3.1.7, the Deputy Head stated that absence for two consecutive days for those with a child protection plan already in place would be referred to Surrey Children’s Social Care.

Mrs Littlechild, the Board’s nominated Child Protection Governor, confirmed that she had reviewed this Policy alongside the Deputy Head and was content that this was satisfactory.

A Governor commented that, if this were to be reviewed annually, it would be useful to see the changes from one year to the next clearly highlighted.

RESOLVED – That, Governors approve the revised Child Protection policy.