Safeguarding & Online Safety

Back to Key Information

Burnage Academy for Boys aims to create and maintain a safe learning environment where all children and adults feel safe, secure and valued and know they will be cared for. Our school implements policies, practices and procedures which promote the safeguarding an wellbeing of children, young people and staff and are up to date with current school safeguarding legislation.

The school has a fully trained Safeguarding Team who work tirelessly, showing care in their support for all students and families.

All pupils know that they can approach any adult in the school in confidence if they are in difficulty or feeling worried and that their concerns will be taken seriously and treated with care and respect.

Our policies and procedures related to safeguarding and child protection are in line with the current government guidance: Keeping Children Safe in Education.

Key Safeguarding Staff

R Wadeson - Assistant Headteacher and Designated Safeguarding Lead
A Shah – Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead

House Leaders:
S Cottrill (Ash)
C Agnew (Oak)
E McIntosh (Maple)
R Lawther (Rowan)

Mental Health Lead: C Doyle

School behaviour Mentors
G Kelembeck
M Osman​

The Personal Development Curriculum

All children have access to an outstanding Personal Development Curriculum which is broad and balanced. The curriculum is embedded in the school values of resilience, independence and care, helping our students to make informed choices in later life and become the young adults which we all aspire for them to be.

This curriculum supports the safeguarding of our children and young people by giving them the knowledge and skills to assess risks, keep safe, and be healthy.

We work closely with trusted external organisations (Brook, Healthy Schools) to ensure our children and young people are receiving reliable and current information; our staff are trained to deliver high quality lessons; our provision meets the Department for Education's statutory guidance for schools.

Attendance

Burnage Academy views attendance as a safeguarding issue and in accordance with the school’s Attendance Policy, absences are rigorously pursued and recorded. The school, in partnership with the appropriate agencies, takes action to pursue and address all unauthorised absences in order to safeguard the welfare of children and young people in its care.

The Attendance Policy identifies how individual cases are managed and how we work proactively with parents/carers to ensure that they understand why attendance is important.

Reporting

The school encourages students to report any concerns in confidence. They can do so directly through any adult in the school, in particular, their Form Tutor or House Leader or through our on-line reporting system. If student safety is at risk then staff are aware that they cannot keep the information confidential.

Please use this form to report your concern to our safeguarding team.

Suspensions and Exclusions

The school will only place young people in alternative educational provision which is a registered provider and has been quality assured. Young people who require access to alternative provision will have a personalised learning plan designed to meet their needs. Their attendance will be monitored by Burnage Academy For Boys in accordance with the School Register Regulations.

The Designated Safeguarding Lead will be informed when a fixed term supension or permanent exclusion is being discussed and any safeguarding issues will be considered. Where it is felt that a child or young person is likely to be permanently excluded a multi-agency assessment will be instigated to ensure that there is improved understanding of the needs of the young person and their family and that the key agencies are involved.

Safeguarding Record Keeping

Burnage Academy will keep and maintain up to date information on children on the school roll including where and with whom the child is living, attainment, attendance, referrals to and support from other agencies. The school record will also include a chronology of any other significant event in a child’s life. The school uses a system called CPOMS for this.

Online Safety

Children are now online more than ever, and we will work with students and families to ensure children are safe. The Manchester Safeguarding Partnership Onilne Safety Hub is an excellent source of information and guidance: Parent Home - MSP - Hub (onlinesafetyhub.uk)

For more information on these and other aspects of our Safeguarding and Child Protection care please see our School Policies page. This also contains a link to our Online Safety Policy.

Reporting a Problem

If you are worried about online sexual abuse or the way someone has been communicating with you online, make a report to a police child protection officer: https://www.ceop.police.uk/safety-centre/

If you want to report harmful online content, you can help get it removed by reporting to this trusted organisation: https://reportharmfulcontent.com/

If you want to remove a nude image or video shared online, report to Childline: https://www.childline.org.uk/info-advice/bullying-abuse-safety/online-mobile-safety/remove-nude-image-shared-online/ 

Keeping Students Safe

Internet Filtering
The school uses Netsweeper filtering software. The school filters externally via real time internet filtering. The filter updates dynamically every day to stop harmful content reaching the school. The school monitors the filtering through reports.

Internet Safe Searching
The school filter uses safe searching available on various platforms.

Keyword Monitoring
The school uses Netsupport DNA control software. The school monitors student internet activity on a daily basis. Keyword searches are logged for the below categories in several languages. The list of words is dynamically updated every day.

  • Adult
  • Bullying
  • Drugs
  • Eating Disorder
  • Grooming
  • Homophobic
  • Racism
  • Radicalisation
  • Self-Harm
  • Suicide

The keyword searches are analysed and acted upon for any safeguarding concerns on a daily basis.

Classroom Monitoring
Teaching and technical staff can monitor student activity in real time to ensure appropriate computer usage.

Computer Access Control
The school uses Microsoft Active Directory with appropriate group policies. The school uses software to restrict student access to both hardware and software on the school computers. This enables technical staff to manage inappropriate usage.

Filter Avoidance
The school uses Sophos Internet Security. The school uses both monitoring and computer access control to stop students using “proxy avoidance” software.

School Resources

Below is a list of online resources that we may ask students to use as part of their class work or homework. All the sites are checked by staff for their suitability prior to sharing. Please get in touch with the class teacher if you wish to discuss anything specific.

Business

BBC Business News - https://www.bbc.com/news/business 

Nissan website - https://www.nissan-global.com/EN/ 

Apple corporate website - https://www.apple.com/business/ 

HMRC - https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-revenue-customs 

Food

Food a fact of life - https://www.foodafactoflife.org.uk/

BBC Good Food - https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/

Illuminate Textbook

Seneca learning

Computing

https://idea.org.uk/

https://scratch.mit.edu/

DT

https://www.sketchup.com/

Humanities

GCSE Pod

BBC Bitesize

Maths

Mathswatch

Dynamic learning

Onmaths KS4

Corbett maths KS4

French

Memrise (website and mobile app)

Language-Gym.co.uk (website we use for homework)

Urdu

Memrise

Useful Links

We highly recommend that parents and carers use some of the organisations below to support online safety at home.

NSPCC https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/online-safety/