This section of the toolkit is about how to address harm that might be happening in a school or between students outside of school. Schools are places where children can gain independence from their families, spend time with their friends and learn. But students have told us that they are also places where they can experience harm from their peers. We know that when harm happens in a school (or in any context) that this it is about more than the individual people who are involved. Cultures, systems and structures can all influence if a place is protective or is a place where children can experience harm. Schools are places where lots of young people come together, and often have their own cultures and ways of working. This means that there is lots of potential to make positive changes.
Scale-Up sites developed new processes for responding to harm in schools, from hosting Safety Summits or creating a referral and assessment process for schools. Their learning has been drawn on to make the resources in this section.
There is a further section below on School Assessments. In this section you can find resources to help social care and school staff to complete a school assessment.
How do you engage students in conversations about safety? What is a school assessment? How do you engage partners in building plans for schools? The following resources get you started on thinking about addressing harm in schools
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Briefing: Contextual approaches to schoolsStart here. This briefing gives an overview of contextual approaches in schools. -
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Case study: School safety meetingsThis case study shows how ‘school safety meetings’ helped to create safety and build trust between young people, the school, and the wider safeguarding partnership. -
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Example: Context threshold templateThis is an example threshold document developed by/for Hackney for screening schools -
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Example: Schools threshold and pathway policyThis document is an example of a safeguarding policy for responding to harm when it takes place within a school or education setting. It includes a threshold of harm table and a referral pathway for schools -
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Example: Referral formThis is an example completed referral form used by Kent to refer a school as a context -
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Example: School partnership meetings agendaAn example agenda for school partnership meetings -
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Example: School partnership meetingsAn example document for schools about the process of school partnership meetings -
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Example: School partnership meetings - pre-meeting information toolAn example completed pre-meeting information mapping tool for school partnership meetings -
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Tool: Signs of safety and contextual safeguarding assessment toolUse this signs of safety and CS template to identify information for the school assessment
This section of the toolkit gives an overview for completing a contextual assessment of a school