In the latest part of our Safeguarding Around the World series, we head to the United Arab Emirates to hear from Kausor Amin-Ali, principal of Frontline International Private School in Ajman.
He highlights increasing concerns about children engaging in risky behaviour when using their mobile phones outside of school, and the difficulty of making parents understand the dangers.
The wide range of nationalities at his school is a key consideration in its approach to safeguarding, he explains. For example, staff need to be aware that some school events might be traumatic for children who have arrived from nations involved in international conflicts.
What are some of the common safeguarding issues you face?
Affluent neglect can be common in our context, with students in very wealthy households often not spending time with parents who are away travelling a lot.
Because of this, it is very difficult to engage directly with the parent other than by electronic means. And even this usually results in a delayed or insufficient response.
Sometimes working parents are so busy that their children are left to fend for themselves with takeaway meals and unsupervised time at home across the week. Parents are often unable to take time off work to attend meetings in school regarding their child’s welfare.
Sadly, physical abuse by parents can happen if their child scores “too low” on academic or school tests or school reports. This can be very damaging and unhealthy.
How do you ensure a consistent approach to safeguarding?
By having a clear structure setting out who to contact and who needs to know, we aim to ensure a consistent approach that is acted on with urgency.
With our policy and our practice, students and staff know they can reach out for support, advice and guidance, and they will be responded to in an urgent manner to ensure the child’s safety.
Have you seen online safeguarding issues grow post-pandemic?
The exponential rise in screen time has not abated since the pandemic, and many schools are banning mobile devices as a result.
The ease with which child sexual abuse material is being accessed is quite frightening. This means there is a generation at high risk, as many reports have highlighted, including one by the children’s commissioner in England.
The invasive culture of sexting and child-on-child abuse feels out of control outside of school. Sadly, the impact of this is then seen in school, where victims need counselling and therapy.
Parents often appear shocked but then allow children to have devices all night, with minimal intervention, sometimes saying, “It is an alarm clock and so they need it at night.”
How do you ensure that staff training is kept up to date?
As a principal, I ensure that any safeguarding updates are shared with the safeguarding team. I encourage them also to share any updates with the designated leads.
This is then cascaded, on a need-to-know basis, to ensure that all relevant staff are updated. It could be cascaded to the whole staff community, to new staff for onboarding or to specific team members, depending on the update (which could include safety alerts or trends).
More Safeguarding Around the World:
With the issue of online matters, there is no boundary and this does risk leaders only being aware of updates in our respective region or country’s context, perhaps not understanding or appreciating the online trends in other nations that spread into our school community, too.
Does the mix of nationalities among pupils present an extra challenge when tackling safeguarding issues?
We do have to be mindful of our cohort’s diversity. For example, we have households from nearly 50 nationalities, including from the war zones of Palestine, Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.
This means that when we have fire drills, we have to forewarn these students, especially in early years foundation stage (EYFS), so they would not be further traumatised from the sounds of alarms and sirens.
Context, too, can be complicated for pupils. Some schools try to “export the blueprint” from Britain and can make things worse - such as by telling a child that if they feel unsafe at home, to run away and call the police, which can, in some jurisdictions, lead to more harm for the child.
This is something that we need to educate our staff about.
Does the variety of parent backgrounds make it hard when discussing safeguarding issues?
Context is everything and we have to be aware that parents from different cultural backgrounds apply their tolerance of child safeguarding in a variety of ways - from overly strict to permissive to being in denial that anything is happening.
However, taboos can be challenged in a respectful and safe space. We can make it clear that any issue raised is done out of care and concern for the child.
We still have to be mindful of how this is done, such as by asking a female leader to speak to a mother in her native language to ensure that the message is respectfully relayed and no miscommunication or misunderstanding occurs through a language barrier.
What are your processes for following up on any incidents?
Having secure systems to log and store content is vital.
Locked cabinets for paper documents have been replaced with encrypted documents. However, having regular briefings and debriefings with my safeguarding team ensures that there is less likelihood of information being missed.
Also, I have always insisted on having a diverse team, in terms of language, experience and skillset, to ensure that all incidents are investigated with the sensitivity needed.
There is nothing worse than speaking in English and having someone else translate to the parent. Having a native speaker in the safeguarding team allows a more dignified investigation. The key message I give is that we are all accountable, and trust and transparency are vital.
How do you keep your own safeguarding knowledge up to date?
Learning from established professional networks and trusted colleagues in this field is key, especially via online platforms like LinkedIn to receive news of the latest network and conference events.
Collaboration is increasing and so is cooperation between schools, which is helping to ensure that best practice is shared. Recent initiatives such as the Safeguarding Alliance have aligned many accredited British curriculum schools, but this is only a small minority of schools internationally.
How do we ensure that all schools have the same high standards for safeguarding? This can only be done with direct ministerial engagement.
Kausor Amin-Ali is the school principal of Frontline International Private School in Ajman, UAE, and the author of A-Z of Teaching and A-Z of School Leadership
