Setting

Aviation House 125 Kingsway London WC2B 6SE T 0300 123 1231 F 020 7421 6855 enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk www.ofsted.gov.uk

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Mr P King Headteacher Green Lane Community Special School Green Lane Padgate Warrington WA1 4JL

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Ofsted 2010–11 best practice survey: safeguarding in schools

Thank you for your hospitality and cooperation, and that of your staff and pupils, during my visit on 17 June 2010 to look at work in safeguarding.

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Ofsted 2010–11 best practice survey: safeguarding in schools

The visit provided valuable information which will contribute to our publication about best practice in safeguarding in schools. The publication will include case studies about individual schools. If your school is included as a case study, you will have an opportunity to comment before publication. Individual institutions will not be identified in the main text without their consent.

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Features of good practice

 The pupils at Green Lane are happy, enjoy school, feel safe and trust the staff to protect them from harm.  Partnerships with other professionals, for example in health and social care, are a strength of the school and add to its capacity to safeguard pupils and develop their emotional well-being.  Senior managers have used the school’s funding wisely to employ specialist expertise from health professionals, with a positive effect on pupils’ well-being. For example, the school nurse is an integral member of the staff team and the occupational therapist works one day a week in school.  The school places great importance on staff training recognising that it is central to developing the school’s expertise and flexibility to meet the pupils’ complex needs. The safety of both pupils and staff is uppermost in people’s minds. An example of this is seen in the school’s work with the speech and language therapist who has trained teaching assistants to

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Features of good practice

support pupils in developing their communication and language skills. The school also has an on-site accredited trainer for manual handling who runs bespoke training programmes for individual staff, focusing on the particular circumstances in their class groups.  Arrangements for child protection are rigorous. The school values the very helpful guidance and support it receives from the local authority for this aspect of safeguarding. The school tailors its training so that adults can gain a deeper understanding of how to safeguard children and young people with special educational needs and communication difficulties.  The staff are keen to encourage pupils to take part in a wide range of activities both on and off site. Although they are very aware of the additional challenges this poses for them and the pupils, it does not put them off; they go to extra lengths to make sure they know each child’s

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Features of good practice

needs very well and what steps are needed to minimise any risks. As a result, the pupils can enjoy activities such as learning to travel independently, taking part in work experience placements, and travelling abroad to places such as the Canary Islands.  Risk assessments are firmly embedded in the minds of all concerned with pupils. The school may wish to consider how the pupils could take a more active role in this process and whether it would be helpful to conduct individual pupil risk assessments to complement those already undertaken for a wide range of activities and environments.  The school sets high standards when carrying out checks on potential staff and volunteers. It applies the same high standards when using supply staff from agencies, and has set additional requirements to check the identity of such staff before they arrive at the school for work. Pupils are well aware that all visitors must wear their badges around school.

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Area for development

 While the school has a broad range of policies relating to different aspects of safeguarding, it may wish to review and rationalise these to make clear the links between each and to ensure that they are fully up to date.

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Area for development

I hope that these observations are useful as you continue to develop safeguarding in the school.

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Area for development

As explained previously, a copy of this letter will be sent to your local authority and will be published on the Ofsted website under the URN for your school. It will also be available to the team for your next school inspection.

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