A joint report to ministers by eight independent inspectorates, including Ofsted, said very few teachers attended centrally-organised courses in child protection, although many received training in school.

“Not all teachers are good at spotting signs of abuse,” said John Taylor, Ofsted’s director of inspection.

Learning to safeguard children from harm by parents, carers, professionals and other children should be a core part of both initial and in-service training, the report says.

A more serious problem highlighted by the inspectors, however, is an acute shortage of child protection staff in local authority social services departments.

This is one of the main reasons, they say, why teachers find that social services respond inadequately to all but the most high-risk cases, where abuse or neglect is very apparent. In some areas, they found this made teachers reluctant to refer their concerns to social workers. They were left to cope on their own with situations that they considered posed high risks of harm to children.

“Teaching staff in one area said that they no longer reported concerns, as they had lost confidence that social workers would respond positively,” the report says.

“Safeguarding Children” is at www.doh.gov.ukscgsocialc.htm