Teach Secondary Issue 13.4

The trouble with SAFEGUARDING In our efforts to ensure every possible safeguarding scenario is covered, we risk overlooking the most important safeguarding duty of all, observes Dave Clements – that of listening... I t’s a familiar mantra – ‘Safeguarding is everybody’s business’ – but too often, it’s anything but. It’s an activity carried out by officialdom. Safeguarding is a procedure you have to follow. It’s a box that must be ticked. It’s mandatory training. Something to be endured and then promptly forgotten about. Procedures and checks are a necessity, albeit often overdone. But they can also become a prop, or an excuse for inaction. They can short circuit real safeguarding – by which I mean the relationships between people that develop in communities. The kind of relationships that can’t be easily identified on school spreadsheets, or rigidly defined in the pages of statutory guidance. Well read Working Together to Safeguard Children (see bit.ly/ts134-TP2 ) is the ‘safeguarding bible’. It details multi-agency arrangements to safeguard and protect children, is filled with flowcharts on who should do what and when, and runs to 168 pages. Anybody working in a school is also expected to read the statutory guidance, Keeping Children Safe in Education (see bit.ly/ ts117-kcsie). As I’m sure you know, this covers everything from the legislation intended to protect children and what staff need to know to keep them safe, down to safe recruitment practices and how to respond to concerns regarding staff. And then there’s The London Safeguarding Children Procedures – which until recently was a hefty volume always found in the offices of children’s services (if not always observed), and these days has a sprawling online presence at bit.ly/ ts134-LSCP. Arranged alphabetically, that from which young Londoners must be protected would seem to include everything from animal abuse, begging and circumcision, to self harm, surrogacy and trafficking. Fosteringmistrust For all the documentation and bureaucratisation of our children’s safeguarding infrastructure, one fundamental question remains: ‘Are our children any safer as a result?’ When I worked in children’s social care, I was under no illusions regarding some of the awful cases we dealt with. These would typically concern a small number of ‘chaotic’ families beset by drugs, alcohol, abuse, neglect and/or violence – but I was also keen to keep things in perspective. It seemed to me that the damage done by exaggerating the extent of abuse and fostering mistrust in each other was out of all proportion to the peril brought about by its actual incidence. Despite what some in the industry would irresponsibly claim, abuse wasn’t (and isn’t) ‘widespread’ . Indeed, the cases of abuse we hear about the most are typically the rarest of all. Parental concerns Those of us who have worked in and around safeguarding, or are grappling with these sorts of issues in schools, could do worse than actually speak to parents. What worries them ? Is it the risk of female genital mutilation? According to the Metropolitan Police, following a recently successful conviction for the practice, it was ‘ Only the second time in UK history that somebody has been convicted of FGMsince it became illegal in 1985 ’. And the offence in question wasn’t even committed in the UK. Or are parents worried about knife crime? Their kids being glued to their devices? Are Jewish parents afraid to send their children to school wearing kippahs because of rising antisemitism?Why aren’t we worrying more about ‘extremism’? There have been recent break-ins, racial slurs and threats of arsonmade against Barclay andMichaela schools in East andWest London respectively. At the time of writing, Michaela has recently seen its ‘prayer ban’ – which sparked spurious allegations of Islamophobia – ruled lawful. But wherever you stand in that particular debate, it seems as though there’s been a notable absence of outrage against the attacks on these schools. The incidents at Barclay happened in the midst of ‘pro-Palestine’ protests featuring angry scenes. As a parent, I know of primary- aged children who have got into disputes with peers over the wearing of Palestinian scarves, and the same keffiyeh worn by Hamas and its supporters being displayed on the badges of well-to-do parents at the school gates. If it’s in the playground and at the school gates, is it in the staff room too? The hierarchy of risk Why do we seem to care about some safeguarding risks more than others? Why do we worry about vanishingly small risks, yet appear far less interested in safeguarding against other bigger and avoidable risks? “The cases ofabusewehear about themost are typically the rarest ofall” 12 teachwire.net/secondary