The Art of Safeguarding Children

At present schools are subject to inspections that assess them on the quality of their work in safeguarding children. The death of Ruth Perry, Headteacher of Caversham Primary School, just after an Ofsted Inspection which downgraded her school on the basis of minor safeguarding failings in training, record-keeping and checks on staff, shows the flaws in the assessment process. In reality, the task of safeguarding children is an art, not a science. Furthermore, it is almost inevitable that mistakes will be made, simply because teachers are human.

Over recent decades the child protection system has been re-invented with a greater emphasis on early intervention and safeguarding. Consequently, schools have been given a greater responsibility for the safeguarding function. Unfortunately, this has not generated the necessary debate about the function of children's services and why the cost of running social care services has risen so much. Neither has it given due recognition to the important safeguarding activities going on in schools.

Teachers clearly have an important duty to spot any child protection concerns and report them and maintain oversight of the children they know to be at risk. However, the safeguarding agenda requires a very different mindset for teachers whose primary concern is normally about giving children a love of learning and knowledge and skills. Schools tend to seek a collaborative working relationship with parents and are therefore inclined to think carefully before passing any safeguarding concern on to children's services. The child protection function of children's services has unsurprisingly produced new forms of resistance to social work intervention from all sections of society and schools are bound to be aware of this.

There is an urgent need to re-consider the reasons why schools have been given major responsibility for the work of safeguarding children. It is also important to recognise the absurdity of trying to measure safeguarding work in schools using a tick-box framework. While the coming together of a range of services around vulnerable children is important it is still apparent that some of the more challenging families fail to receive help. The reasons for this are complex and schools are often left to work with very troubled children with minimal support. It would also be a mistake to make schools over-vigilant about policing sexualised behaviour in children that is within the range of normal.

The Inspectorate does not recognise the ethical dilemmas for teachers and how these may influence their decision about whether it is appropriate to use formal safeguarding procedures. Our society is beset with problems of poor parenting and child maltreatment. In a civilised society it is essential that children are protected from maltreatment but, despite all the efforts of children's services, there are no signs that the scale of these problems is being reduced. Inevitably, mainstream schools are often asked to provide education to children with emotional and behavioural problems and to offer these children help that includes the nurturing and guidance that is lacking in the home.

The over-reliance on formal inspections means that there is insufficient attention to the 'art' of safeguarding which underpins work with vulnerable children in schools. The key to good practice is to recognise that it always involves intuitive understanding as well as intellectual activity. Safeguarding in schools includes looking, listening, understanding and reflecting on how children behave and present themselves. It is a complex ongoing process and schools often provide vulnerable children with a safe haven where they can receive the stimulation, support and controls that assist in their development.

It certainly appears that moral panic in society may tend to trigger an inappropriate response to a child behaving in a way that raises suspicions of sexual abuse. The inspectors at Caversham Primary School were apparently operating in this way. However, the formal safeguarding system is complex and there is an urgent need for a wider debate about how teachers should deal with sexualised behaviour in children that is inevitably seen in schools.

There seems to be a prevailing orthodoxy in debates about raising standards of practice in safeguarding work which silences unfashionable opinions. It is absurd that Ofsted, during its inspection at Caversham Primary School, put a narrow focus on formal safeguarding procedures and a trivial incident in the playground. It may claim its approach is rigorous but the work of safeguarding children is only a part of the school's function. Inspectors gave the school the lowest possible rating despite it being rated good in every category apart from leadership and management, where it was judged inadequate. The decision by the Inspectorate to downgrade the rating of the school was a form of bullying and harassment that had a devastating effect on the headteacher.

Hilary Searing

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