Tes’ Safeguarding Around the World series heads to Oman to hear from Kai Vacher, principal of the British School Muscat, about the school’s safeguarding focus and the common issues that it deals with - and why being aware of changes to key guidance in England is vital to this work.
Vacher also explains how the school’s safeguarding team aim to be proactive in managing safeguarding issues by identifying trends or patterns in individuals or groups of students, and the actions that are taken when concerns come to light.
What are some of the common safeguarding issues that you face?
The diversity of our student body is a source of immense pride at British School Muscat. However, maintaining a harmonious, respectful and consistent approach to safeguarding across the entire school community demands diplomacy, curiosity and empathy.
This means making a concerted effort to learn about the social norms and customs across the spectrum of international backgrounds. This awareness enables us to more effectively support the needs of all students and keep them safe and happy.
From time to time we need to have sensitive and compassionate conversations with parents to discuss issues, such as risks their children and their family may be exposed to in Oman: local laws and cultural expectations and acceptable methods of managing the challenging behaviour of children in this context.
How do you ensure a consistent approach to safeguarding?
The use of CPOMS (our online safeguarding system) provides a consistent school-wide approach towards safeguarding. Designated safeguarding leads (DSLs) have access to all the safeguarding concerns logged by staff, and work closely with colleagues to ensure that our response is consistent and decisions are made in line with policy and in the best interests of the students.
We train all new staff to ensure that they are aware of particular concerns in our context. Our annual training keeps safeguarding at the forefront for all of our staff and is an opportunity for us to identify trends and increased areas of risk.
More from Tes’ Safeguarding Around the World series:
We thoroughly review our safeguarding policy every summer in light of changes to statutory regulations in Oman and any changes to Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) guidance in England, too. We highlight these changes in our safeguarding policy with all of our colleagues in face-to-face training sessions at the start of the year and with our governing body.
We complement these training sessions by enabling all of our colleagues to complete the relevant online training sessions provided by Tes Safeguarding.
In addition to annual training, we offer regular bite-sized training by discussing a range of safeguarding scenarios with colleagues. We also highlight individual scenarios and active strategies to support individuals through bespoke safeguarding and behaviour plans shared via the pastoral update system.
How do you stay aware of new and emerging safeguarding issues?
We have established and maintain an excellent working relationship with The Safeguarding Alliance. Since September 2020 we have hosted a free, termly Oman Safeguarding Forum for all international schools in Muscat, supported by the Ministry of Education.
We also ensure that our DSLs have regular Level 3 Safeguarding Training. Two of our DSLs are currently being trained as safeguarding trainers through the NOC “train the trainer” programme.
This will enable us to offer Level 3 training to all schools that participate in the Oman Safeguarding Forum. In addition, we update our policy and best practice based on the UK government’s annual KCSIE updates.
What are your processes for following up on any incidents?
We log all safeguarding incidents on CPOMS software. Having consistent, accurate and thorough logging and reporting of safeguarding concerns and incidents supports colleagues to respond to and resolve incidents with easy access to the full range of up-to-date information and clear and accurate case histories where relevant.
Once issues are logged, the relevant in-school personnel can triage the case to the various levels of pastoral support the school has in place. We have a variety of interventions led by different practitioners and this empowers us to create systems where there is even resource distribution and effective and impactful intervention.
The monitoring and actioning of incidents is done daily. This enables the pastoral team to be proactive in managing safeguarding issues to identify trends or patterns in individuals or groups of students. This, in turn, creates an opportunity for “safeguarding in the curriculum”, whereby matters can be addressed in tutor time and through personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE).
In all instances, incidents are best dealt with as soon as possible. The incorporation of a wellbeing button on the intranet to enable students to refer issues to us ensures that cases relating to safeguarding or wellbeing can be addressed quickly and effectively.
How do you, as a leader, ensure that your safeguarding knowledge is kept up to date?
I complete the online Educare training annually. I am also involved in the planning and facilitation of the Oman Safeguarding Forum.
I have scheduled half-term meetings with the DSLs to discuss key safeguarding trends, patterns and ongoing concerns (coded green, orange and red) across the school.
We review recent staff and governor training and plan the next programme of training for the next two terms. We also discuss the safeguarding report that I present to the board of governors once a term.
