As part of my induction into my home school I was required to do a child protection course. This was a 2 hour session taken by the child protection officer. The point of this course was to make sure that the school had issued its statutory training in this area before actually allowing us to teach. We also needed to have this training in order to protect ourselves if there ever was an incident.
The main points where as follows:
- Look out for any abnormal behaviour or signs that a pupil is being mistreated either at home or at school. These can be visual for example the face. It is important to realise some of these could just be due to children being clumsy
- Do not offer confidentially say you have to pass on this information.
- ALWAYS AND EVERYTIME YOU HEAR SOMETHING PASS ON THE INFORMATION THE CHILD PROTECTION OFFICER.