At St. Richard’s, the safety and well-being of our pupils is of paramount importance.

The people above are our safeguarding team and are available to speak to if you have any concerns.

If you wish to discuss any aspect of safeguarding, please speak to a member of the Office staff who will arrange a meeting with one of our DSLs.

If you are a member of staff, please use CPOMs to record your concerns under the categories of ‘behaviour’ or ‘safeguarding’.

If you are a visitor or volunteer, please use a ‘Green Form’ to record your concerns - these can be found in the school office. Once completed, please pass these to one of our DSLs.

Safeguarding Statement 

St Richard’s Catholic Primary School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

We have a number of policies and procedures in place that contribute to our safeguarding commitment, including our Child Protection Policy which can be viewed in both the ‘Safeguarding’ section and ‘Policies’ section on our website.

Sometimes we may need to share information and work in partnership with other agencies, when there are concerns about a child's welfare. We will ensure that our concerns about our pupils are discussed with parents/carers first, unless we have reason to believe that such a move would be contrary to the child's welfare.

We actively support the Government's Prevent Agenda to counter radicalism and extremism.

Our Designated Safeguarding Lead is:-

Mrs Hannah Waller (SENCO)

Deputy Designated Safeguarding Leads are:-

Mr Colin Taylor (Headteacer) and

Miss Emily Drage (Assistant Headteacher)

The Governance Committee member with responsibility for safeguarding in our school is:-

Mrs. Judith Doherty (Foundation Governor)

Contact details for Kent County Council’s Education Safeguarding Team (EST) and Local Authority Designated Officers (LADOs): LADO Team: kentchildrenslado@kent.gov.uk 03000 41 08 88

Photographs and Videos

Whilst lots of parents and carers really enjoy seeing photos and videos of their children’s school life we are very mindful of our duty of care towards all our pupils. We take the issue of safeguarding very seriously and this includes the use of photographic and video images.

Any photographs or videos taken by parents, carers and relatives at school productions, sports days or other events are for the enjoyment of individual families. They must not be used in any way that could potentially place a child at risk. This would include publishing images in any form of print or on the internet including social networking sites. This is emphasised before concerts and shows etc.

When a child joins our school community, GDPR forms are completed to ensure permissions (or decline of permissions) are obtained for Information & Images.   If your circumstances change and these permission arrangements need to be adjusted, please notify the school office immediately.

We like to use photographs of our children on our website, in school documents, for parent information meetings, newsletters and on our display screens around the school.  These permissions are all gathered in our GDPR agreement for each pupil.