When parents are choosing schools for their kids, safeguarding training sets you apart from the competition.
When you are hiring teachers in the UK, you know that you will need to put them through at least a basic level of safeguarding training. This is to secure the lives of the students or vulnerable people that they care for daily. This training lets teachers spot things that are out of the ordinary, that might indicate signs of neglect or abuse. This type of training benefits any organisation that works with vulnerable people. It protects your reputation and protects the students, all in one swooping motion.
Let’s discuss how safeguarding training works to benefit your educational establishment.
What is Safeguarding Training?
Starting with the basics, let’s describe what this type of training does. Safeguarding is the process of protecting the vulnerable people we work with against abuse, either in our building or in the home. This training course teaches educators and carers how to spot signs of abuse and neglect. Often, children don’t know how to say what is happening to them. Instead of saying that they face an inappropriate adult or situation, they might tell you that they hurt without context. Safeguarding training teaches us to pick up on the subtext.
Implementing this type of training has clear benefits for the school. You earn a reputation as an establishment that protects children while simultaneously protecting yourself from the potential scandal caused by a rogue teacher or a missed situation in the home. It improves teacher’s skills and educates them on spotting things they might otherwise have missed.
Importantly, safeguarding training is included in teacher training and is a statutory requirement before you can work in a school. You can read more about the law surrounding keeping our vulnerable people safe in education on the UK Gov site.
What does Safeguarding Training include?
If we look at this excellent example from Hays Safeguarding Training team, we can get a better idea of what is included exactly.
Recognising Abuse
Teachers learn to spot the signs of abuse or neglect.
Ensuring online safety
Teachers, educators, and adults can learn how to protect children or vulnerable people in their care from online threats and harmful imagery.
Governmental Compliance
You will learn core compliance and review the latest guidance to gain accurate, up-to-date insights into what the UK government expects from its teachers.
Behaviour Management
Staff can learn what behaviours are indicative of which things. They can also learn how to manage these out of place behaviours in a constructive way.
Health and Safety
Educators can use safeguarding training to provide a continued high standard of health and safety throughout your establishment.
Recognition and Prevention of Radicalisation
This sounds terrifying but we do need it. Terrorist organisations have a history with corrupting young minds and attracting them overseas to causes they could otherwise avoid. If you suspect radicalism in your school, there are effective means of reporting it. You can learn all this and more with an established safeguarding training package in your school.