Management Information Sheet

Governing bodies of maintained schools have a duty under section 175 (2) Education Act 2002 to make arrangements for ensuring the conduct of the school are exercised with a view to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of pupils at the school. Section 157 of the Act places the same requirements on Academies, Free Schools and Independent Schools.

The safeguarding self-review tool has been revised to reflect changes in local and national guidance and learning from serious case reviews and audit; new fields and revised fields are highlighted throughout the tool. The tool forms the primary evidential basis for the Local Authority audit of school practice that will take place over the next three terms and schools will be requested to submit a completed safeguarding self-review tool.

As in 2017, the review tool will be accessible to all schools via Norfolk County Council's My Schools section of the Norfolk Schools site. When you are logged on to the system, you will be able to access the tool via the 'School Performance' tab. Further guidance on completing the tool is also available on those pages and attached to this correspondence.

All maintained schools, free schools, independent schools and academies will be invited to submit a completed self-review tool for analysis in 3 groups over three terms as follows:

If your school appears in the Group 1 list of schools at the end of this document, please complete the self-review tool via the My Schools website by 18 December 2019.

If your school is not included in Group 1, you will be sent a request via a further Management Information Sheet at the beginning of the term the return for your school is required. If your school is not named in Group 1, but you wish to submit a completed review during this cycle, please feel free to do so.

Thank you for your co-operation and support with this audit. The last audit of school safeguarding procedures was completed in 2017-18. A total of 90% of schools that were contacted provided the information. The overall findings of the audit identified gaps in knowledge and understanding of areas such as tackling child sexual abuse, neglect and on-line safety arrangements. Evidence of monitoring and challenge and clear ways of working with the named governor for safeguarding as well as governor training were also areas that required improvement.

Schools are supported with many of the areas for development identified above through the 'forms and templates,' 'training,' and the 'guidance' tabs available in the 'Safeguarding Section' of the Norfolk Schools' website.

A link to the Audit section of the Norfolk Schools website is attached for your information. This includes the Audit Report and Powerpoint related to the Spot Checks undertaken in the Summer Term 2018.

Date to be completed

Group 1: 18 December 2019

Submission of the Safeguarding Self-review Tool: GROUP ONE

If your school appears in this list of schools, please can you complete and submit the revised self-review tool by no later than 18 December 2019. Please note that you should not submit copies of supporting documentation, but it is important that you provide a rating and a supporting commentary of evidence for each question. If you do not include this information, it is likely that you will be asked to re-submit the tool. Guidance on completing the tool is also available on those pages and attached to this correspondence.

Updating DSL information on My School

It is a local requirement that schools ensure the information on My School is up-to-date. This includes the 'Designated staff' section which can be found by clicking on the Staff tab. When these details have been updated, the Local Authority Safeguarding Team will be in a position to email schools to let them know when DSL training is due to expire. We would ask that these details are updated by 30 September 2019. Instructions on how to make these amendments are attached.