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Safeguarding and support for pupils

 
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NAHT members are at the forefront of safeguarding children. School leaders are committed to keeping children safe, so they can learn well. NAHT believes that all pupils should receive the support they need to maintain their well-being and achieve their potential, both within school and from wider services including health and social care.

NAHT is campaigning to:

Enable schools to play their part in supporting pupils' well-being

  • Lobby for pupils and schools to get the support they need from wider services including health, social care, police and youth services
  • Influence the implementation of the proposals from the mental health green paper, including the senior lead for mental health and mental health support teams
  • Support schools to access relevant, high-quality training and resources to enable pupils to exercise their right to support for their mental well-being.

 

Support schools to safeguard and protect pupils

  • Engage with the DfE over proposed changes to the role of the Designated Safeguarding Lead
  • Influence changes to Keeping Children Safe In Education, Working Together and Sexual Violence and harassment guidance
  • Campaign to improve online safety for children and young people
  • Press the government to ensure home educated children are adequately safeguarded
  • Promote guidance and resources to support schools to protect children at risk of harm including involvement with violence and other crime.

 

Enable schools to support vulnerable groups of pupils

  • Campaign to ensure pupils with SEND can receive the support they need from schools and wider services
  • Press for improved alternative provision and collaborative approaches across communities to support pupils excluded from school
  • Provide information to schools to help them to support disadvantaged children
  • Enable schools to make informed decisions regarding parental requests to home educate
  • Ensure reforms to behaviour guidance and networks is evidence-based and appropriate for all schools and a diverse pupil population. 
 

Details published on Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission interim local area SEND visits

​From October 2020 until early Spring 2021, Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) will be making a limited number of visits to local areas to find out about their arrangements for children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). ​

Not all local areas will be visited, instead, a representative selection of local areas will be invited to participate. Local areas have the right to decline this invitation as participation is voluntary.

As these visits are not inspections, they will not replace the current area SEND inspection cycle.  Instead, they will aim to:

  • Enable the local area to understand the impact of the pandemic on CYP with SEND and their families.
  • Identify what has worked well, what were the challenges and any lessons learnt.
  • Identify opportunities for improvement that address the remaining challenges identified.
  • Produce anonymised national reports after the programme of visits to share learning and best practice.

What will the visits involve?

  • They will last two days on-site, with flexibility for virtual meetings
  • One Ofsted Education HMI, one Ofsted Social Care HMI and one CQC children's service inspector
  • 4-6 case studies of CYP and practitioners working with them
  • Online surveys provided by Ofsted
  • Discussions with leaders
  • A feedback meeting
  • A summary note agreed with local area leaders and shared with DfE and NHS England which will not be published

 

Specific guidance on these visits can be found here. 

First published 11 September 2020
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