Safeguarding Best Practice in Schools

We explore some of the key elements of safeguarding best practice in schools, and how SchoolsBuddy can help

Essentially, safeguarding in schools looks to guarantee and promote the safety of children. There are many examples of safeguarding best practice in schools, all of which aim to protect children from maltreatment, protect their health and development, and ensure safe and effective care.

One of the main elements of safeguarding, especially in this day and age, is effective communication. Systems for communication in schools need to be accessed and shared by the relevant parties. This principal is at the heart of SchoolsBuddy, and the app driven format is designed for this purpose. The fact it can be accessed by teachers, parents and the pupils themselves means that all bases are covered when it comes to letting everyone know what’s happening. Push notifications send information straight into the pockets of those who need to be kept updated, which keeps everyone in the loop.

Health and safety is a big concern in schools too. Arrangements made to protect pupils and deal with any accidents or medical issues need to be practical, and this is a big part of safeguarding best practice in schools. With this in mind, SchoolsBuddy have incorporated a function for storing pupil’s medical data and I.C.E info, which is quickly accessible by the relevant members of staff. Parents are quickly contactable via the app too, which is vital should an emergency arise.

‘Rigorous monitoring of absence with timely and appropriate follow up’ is also detailed in the Government features of safeguarding best practice in schools, and is the idea behind our SchoolsBuddy register system. The app allows registers for after school clubs and school trips to be taken on a mobile or tablet device, and as soon as the register is posted to the server, any absentees are flagged up immediately. This then sends notifications to the relevant people (i.e management team and school office), so that the child’s absence can be followed up. This ties in with the pupil diary system, which allows staff members to see where pupils should be, and if any of their extracurricular commitments clash.

School trips can often be a headache for schools when it comes to safeguarding, but SchoolsBuddy makes this easier in terms of communication. Often, school trip transport can run late, and if this happens, staff can easily inform parents and carers of the delay. This saves arriving back to a group of worried relatives!

All aspects of ‘safeguarding best practice’ in schools are constantly being monitored and improved, and we look at technology as way to protecting pupils easier for staff, and for parents. Safeguarding is something always in the
minds of us at SchoolsBuddy, because we agree with Secretary of State for Education Nicky Morgan’s recent statement: “There is nothing more important than keeping young people safe.”