Keeping Students Safe
St Mary Redcliffe and Temple School is committed to protecting our students and ensuring their safety and wellbeing, not just whilst at school but also in the wider community. We believe that as a community looking after each other is everyone’s responsibility. The School community should respect each other and understand, accept and celebrate each other’s differences (gender, race, age, religion, sexuality or disability) so that the care, happiness and safety of every single person is the concern of us all. We achieve this through our empowered learning curriculum and good relationships work through our pastoral system.
How to Report Bullying, Discrimination and Harassment
There are three ways to report bullying, discrimination, and harassment.
1.
Verbally (by mouth)
- Speak to your Tutor who will listen, support, follow up on and make sure the right people support you.
- You can also speak to your Head of Year or Deputy Head of Year or Year Group Learning Mentor.
- A further group of staff you can report concerns to are our Behaviour Managers based on C Floor. They can take the information and make sure your tutor or Year team leaders check in with you to listen and help solve the concern.
2.
Digitally (by email)
You can click on the image above which allows to you to send an email to this address:
safeguarding@smrt.bristol.sch.uk
This email will be read by one of our safeguarding team and they will make contact with you.
This email address is also available as a Bookmark in Bromcom's Student Portal. See screenshots below. This can be used by students.
3.
Physically (school letter box)
- From Term 1 2023 we will have secure letter boxes.
- You can write or type a note and post it in the letter boxes located in each year group office and in visitor reception.
- Please include your name if it is about you or the name of the person whose safety/wellbeing you are concerned about.
- The boxes will be checked daily by Heads of Year and the Administrator for Safeguarding and Mental Health (from 09/23) who will make sure you receive the support you need.
How we will Respond to Reports of Bullying, Discrimination and Harassment
- An allegation of bullying, discrimination or harassment against any student or member of staff will be investigated thoroughly
- The incident will recorded appropriately for example as a racist incident.
- Supporting the victim is vital. We want to create a climate in our school in which victims of Bullying, Discrimination and Harassment incidents feel able to report them.
- All staff and young people are encouraged to report any incident they witness and all such reports will be followed up.
- The school will involve parents or carers when offering support to victims of serious incidents, and it may be appropriate to involve other agencies.
- The school will do everything in its power to provide an interpreter for victims and parents if necessary.
- Where the victim of an incident of bullying, discrimination and harassment is a member of staff, support is available through the school leadership team, governors, their professional associations and/or through the non-managerial consultancy scheme, in addition to support from colleagues.
- When dealing with incidents of bullying, discrimination and harassment, we will:
- be guided by our alive model - we value justice and respect, we value trust and truth and we are forgiving
- listen and obtain statements from the alleged victim, alleged perpetrator and witnesses
- remain calm
- accept the alleged victim’s language and terminology
- remember that to report an incident may need considerable courage
- acknowledge the feelings of the victim(s)
- confirm they were right to make the disclosure
- show we understand the difficulty in discussing the matter
- offer immediate support; reassure the alleged victim that the matter will be treated seriously and that a full investigation will take place
- keep the alleged victim and alleged perpetrator as informed as we can throughout the process.
- follow the appropriate policies
- do our best to review and learn from the incident
In an Emergency
If you have immediate concerns about the safety of any young person you can contact FIRST RESPONSE on 0117 9036444 (during normal office hours) or the POLICE on 101 or 999 (depending on how urgent you think it is). Looking after children in our community is everyone’s responsibility.
As well as our own staff who offer a variety of services we may be able to direct parents and students to outside agencies who visit us in school, they include:
Brook Clinic – Relationship and Sexual Health Advice
Bristol Drugs Project – Substance Misuse
Off the Record – Counselling Service
School Nurse Team
Safeguarding Policy
The Policy is listed on our school policies page here. The Safeguarding Policy is reviewed on an annual basis and presented to the Governing Body. The policy was devised in collaboration with the Safeguarding in Education team and Keeping Bristol Safe Partnership and approved and adopted by the Full Governing Body for approval and adoption in line with the changes in KCSIE 2022.
