Safeguarding

Our vision is very clear and has safeguarding at its core.  Everyone succeeds and achieves their potential regardless of any personal characteristics. Background does not determine outcomes.  We are all equal all the time and treat people with the respect they deserve. We are not afraid to make mistakes as we see this as part of our learning journey.

We aim for our students to leave our academy with as many opportunities available to them as possible, we believe by giving them a message of “warm strict” we will achieve this. By “warm strict” we mean to have high expectations constantly for all our students regardless of their background and to provide our students with a high level of challenge and support to enable them to achieve. This will allow them to become successful and caring citizens, whilst upholding the values that they have learnt throughout their educational journey with us.

We are stronger as a team than a group of individuals and can change anything collectively that we put our mind to, whilst also being able to critically reflect on our actions.

We aim to provide a rounded education that ensures our students grow holistically through developing resilience, tolerance and humanity and leave HAOC as a good person.

The academy philosophy, vision and expectation on safeguarding is very clear. Every person, no matter how they are connected with the academy, has a personal responsibility for the highest standards of safeguarding for our students, for example:

1.     All academy staff

2.     All academy students

3.     All academy parents/carers

4.     All external agencies that engage with the academy and young people

5.     All members of our local community

"Where do you feel safe?" - contextualised safeguarding

Young people encounter risk and safety in locations outside of the home. These experiences are crucial in shaping how they move through our local neighbourhood and how to keep themselves safe. We carry out a safeguarding curriculum where pivotal areas of our young people’s lives are discussed and where students can learn and understand about where they feel safe or at risk.

Prevent Strategy 

Prevent is a Government strategy designed to stop people being drawn into terrorism or extremist causes. The strategy covers all types of radicalisation and extremism. All schools have a duty to safeguard children from radicalisation and extremism. HAOC provides a safe environment, which teaches children the value of tolerance and mutual respect. It also provides a better understanding of how to keep themselves safe from extremism and radicalisation. 

Studies tell us that 99% of 13-17-year-olds are in front of a screen for 20.5 hours per week, and that too much ‘screen time’ on any electronic device can have a direct impact on our mental health.

With screens playing such an important role in not only education, but also contact with friends, how do we encourage our children to create a healthy screen-time balance?

Here are some effective strategies for helping your children strike a healthy balance and look after their mental wellbeing.

• Set limits on screen use for everyone in your house. This will differ for every family but set the limit and ensure everyone sticks to it. Once the time is up, no more screens until tomorrow!
• Ensure the hour before bedtime is screen-free, this will ensure your child’s brain has time to “wind-down” before sleep
• Avoid letting your child take their phone/tablet to bed with them (this is even a good tip for adults as well!). Find a communal place where all phones can be charged overnight
• Build time into your child’s daily routine for non-screen activities. Reading, exercise, a walk, gardening, baking, board games… it can be anything just so long as it doesn’t involve a screen! If you just remove a child’s device with nothing to replace it, they will quickly become bored and even resentful, which can lead to a lot of resistance to stop the use of their device
• Avoid letting your child have a screen during mealtimes. Use mealtimes as an opportunity to talk, communicate and catch up
• Lead by example. If you expect your child to have screen-free time at meals or any other time, parents/carers/older siblings should follow the same rules. Each one of the tips above should also be applicable to adults in the family (wherever possible)

How do we effectively monitor our children’s use of screens and online material?

In many households, children are more tech savvy than adults. This can make it difficult for parents or carers to monitor what their children access online to ensure the content is always appropriate and to ultimately keep them safe.

Here are some helpful tips to help you with monitoring their online activity.

• Wherever possible (and this might not be in busy households), ensure your child uses their device in a communal area. Could they set up a “workstation” at the kitchen table or in the dining room?
• Stay engaged with what your child does online. The more you get involved and understand the things your child does online, the easier it is to gain respect and be influential in their digital world. Also, making screens part of family time, like a movie or an online games night, is one way to make it more inclusive and engaging
• Use device settings on your child’s device to set time limits on certain apps. All consoles and some social platforms have in-built settings that allow you to set alerts to tell you when you’ve reached a certain amount of time on the platform and gives you a summary of time spent to support digital wellbeing
• Set privacy and parental controls on your child’s device- a quick Google or YouTube search with the name of the device and ‘parental controls’ usually brings up useful information
• If your child uses an app regularly and you are not aware of the content, download the app yourself or do a little investigation to check the content and features are age appropriate. You can use the following website: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/ which outlines the content and features of every app available
• If your child has a profile on a particular app, you can download the app yourself and add their profile. This will enable you to monitor who they ‘follow’ or who is ‘following’ them online, as well as monitor any content they post or have access to
• Talk about the online risks with your child. Be open and honest about the online risks teens face so they feel confident to talk to you if they get into trouble online, don’t overreact, remember that the dialogue is important, and you want them to come back to you the next time they need support
• Be aware of the signs of screen-time overuse. Often a sign that a child is spending too much time in front of a screen is when they may feel anxiety or stress if they are disconnected or separated from their phone. Lack of sleep and exercise may be a sign they need to take a break from their device
• Make a “family agreement” about use and time online and ensure all in the household stick to it
• Be aware of material accessed / shared. (The Internet Watch Foundation reported in 2020 over 68,000 webpages containing indecent images were removed)

If you have any queries, questions or concerns, please feel free to contact a member of our safeguarding team.

At Harris Academy Ockendon, we are working in partnership with Essex Police to identify and provide appropriate support to students who have experienced domestic violence in their household, this scheme is called Operation Encompass.

The purpose of Operation Encompass is to safeguard and support children and young people who have been involved in or been witness to a domestic abuse incident. Domestic abuse impacts on children in a number of ways. Children are at increased risk of physical injury during an incident, either by accident or because they attempt to intervene. Even when not directly injured, children are greatly distressed by witnessing the physical and emotional suffering of a parent.

Operation Encompass has been created to highlight this situation. It is the implementation of key partnership working between the Police and Schools / Academies. The aim of sharing information with local schools / academies is to allow ‘Key Adults’ (normally the Designated Safeguarding Lead), the opportunity of engaging with the child and to provide access to support that allows them to remain in a safe but secure familiar environment.

In order to achieve this, Essex Police will share information of domestic incidents where one of our students has been present, with the Key Adult. On receipt of any information, the Key Adult will decide on the appropriate support the child requires. All information sharing and resulting actions will be undertaken in accordance with General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). We will record this information and store this in accordance with the record keeping procedures outlined in these regulations.

The purpose and procedures in Operation Encompass have been shared with all parents and governors. Further information can be found by following this link.

Harris Academy Ockendon recommends Kooth or shout 85258 to provide free, anonymous online counselling tailored to young people.

Their specialists are available every day and are on hand to support young people either over the phone or through instant messaging.

It can be used for any form of mental health support.

For further information, please visit their website at the links above.

In addition, Thurrock’s Educational Psychology and School Wellbeing Services helpline offers support to young people and families.

You can contact them by phone (01375 652537) or email via sws@thurrock.gov.uk

Some other websites you may find useful are found below;

https://www.internetmatters.org/

https://www.saferinternet.org.uk/

A Guide: What Parent's need to know about Snapchat

www.childnet.com – for help and advice on key online safety topics such as social media, parental controls, and keeping safe online. Click here for a List of helpful online resources.

www.getsafeonline.org – Free up-to-date security advice

www.ceop.police.uk – Website of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre

www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe - the NSPCC provides support and tips to help you keep your children safe