Safeguarding - City Academy

Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is defined for the purposes of this guidance (KCSIE 2024) as:

Providing help and support to meet the needs of children as soon as problems emerge
Protecting children from maltreatment, whether that is within or outside the home, including online
Preventing the impairment of children’s mental and physical health or development
Ensuring that children grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care
Taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes.

Safeguarding is central to the work of CORE Education Trust and the Academy, underpinning our CORE values of Collaboration, Opportunity, Respect and Excellence.

We commit to beyond statutory safeguarding standards in our School, and expect all our staff to share this commitment.

There are a number of policies and procedures in place that contribute to our safeguarding commitment, including our Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy (which can be viewed below). All our other Trust Policies can be viewed on our Policies page.

Safeguarding Policy 2024-25

CORE Education Trust recognises its responsibility to safeguard the welfare of all students by protecting them from emotional, sexual or physical harm, and from neglect or bullying. We acknowledge that child abuse can be a very emotive and difficult subject. It’s important to understand the feelings involved, but not to allow them to interfere with judgement about the action to be taken.

We believe that the student’s welfare is always of paramount concern, and that all students have a right to be protected from abuse – regardless of their age, gender, disability, culture, language, racial origin, religious belief or sexual identity. All suspicions and allegations of abuse will be taken seriously and responded to swiftly and appropriately in accordance with our Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy.

At City Academy we work collaboratively with a number of external agencies including West Midlands Police (WMP). We have two allocated School Intervention and Prevention Officers (SIPO’s) who support us in safeguarding our children against Child Criminal Exploitation (CCE) and Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) as well as working within the community.

All staff are trained regularly on Child Protection Procedures. All applicants for employment at CORE Education Trust and our schools are fully vetted in accordance with DfE Guidelines Safeguarding Children: Safer Recruitment and Selection in Education Settings.

Safeguarding contact email – [email protected]

In the event of a concern about a Headteacher, please contact Jo Tyler (Interim CEO) via [email protected]