In the latest instalment of the series, we head to eastern Europe to hear from Rob Ford, director of Heritage International School in Chisinau, Moldova, about the various safeguarding challenges his school faces and how it overcomes them - from Soviet-era traffic worries to blanket policies for trips to ensure student safety.

He also explains why all staff are given two weeks of safeguarding training and a refresher every year.

How do you ensure a consistent approach to safeguarding?

One of the hardest challenges in an international school environment relates to the expectations and experiences of different teachers and staff, from different cultures and contexts. They are definitely not uniform.

Often, national standards are not as thorough or up to date as the annual Department for Education’s Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance and this can be a shock when you’ve come from the UK, where safeguarding and child protection are of a high standard.

This is a good reason for international schools to hold an accreditation from an organisation such as the Council of British International Schools (Cobis) or the Council of International Schools, as their safeguarding and child protection standards are high. Certainly, when we achieved our Cobis accreditation, it felt that we finally had a consistent, school-wide approach to safeguarding and safer recruitment.

What are some common safeguarding issues you face?

We have many pupils travelling to school on buses and we need to make sure the adult-to-student supervision ratio is there, and that the drivers have the necessary permissions in place to drive children.

At the school gate, it is about making sure parents and visitors do not come on to campus - our front-of-house staff do a great job of greeting everyone but also dealing with parents who want to drop something off or walk a child into class if they are feeling emotional.

Because our sixth-form A-level students are the only students allowed to leave the campus during the day, the importance of a register across the schools being taken is also crucial - especially as many of our IGCSE students don’t like the fact that they cannot leave the campus during the school day.

To counter this, we have developed a practice where the school counsellor or head of security accompanies some students to a café on the other side of the park as a “wellbeing walk” and this stops them trying to leave the campus. High-profile road-traffic accidents, in which children have been knocked down on the wide old Soviet boulevards, reinforce why we have to do this.

Pick-up at the end of the day can also be a problem because some parents don’t leave their cars and we cannot send students out to them unless they are standing at the gates.

How do you stay aware of emerging safeguarding issues?

Our membership of organisations such as Cobis and the Educational Collaborative for International Schools (ECIS) - which provide regular webinars, conferences and training throughout the year - is helpful to raise new issues.

Our head of pastoral/designated safeguarding lead (DSL) and school counsellor regularly cascade new issues to staff and we also have a designated lead for online learning safety, who makes staff aware of any emerging issues.

As an eTwinning school, we take part in the Digital Learning Week and other digital literacy events. Often, new and emerging safeguarding issues are addressed here. The British Council Schools Education Exchange also has useful webinars and training.

In weekly leadership meetings and the full governors’ meetings, there are the twin standings items of safeguarding/child protection, and health and safety.

We work closely with our international community partners, such as the US Embassy, United Nations and European Union organisations in Moldova, some of which have a number of children placed with us, and they will only accredit and recommend us to their communities if we are at a certain standard in relation to safeguarding.

We share our safeguarding policies and similar documents with the family officers and have regular liaison meetings.

How do you ensure staff training is kept up to date?

We have two weeks’ training in the latter half of August where we go through our safeguarding policy and child protection procedures - and every member of staff has to sign with HR to say that they have attended this annual session.

The DSL takes staff practically through the process of disclosure as well as providing an in-depth look at areas such as signs of abuse, neglect and safeguarding issues that are not obvious.

The online safety DSL will hold similar sessions going through the policy and current issues to be aware of. We often have specialist support, and this academic year, we have a GP and parent from the international community working with families on common issues in open information evenings

We also have everyone trained to a level 1 safeguarding standard, including ancillary staff, using recognised providers, such as ECIS.

And in our weekly teaching and learning sessions, the DSL and school counsellor will take sessions on safeguarding and child protection.

All teaching assistants (TAs) in our primary school and kindergarten take higher-level courses from providers such as the British Council’s Future Learn, about the role of the TA in class, and all governors have training, including to level 3 for the designated safeguarding governor (DSG).

Does the mix of nationalities present an extra challenge when tackling safeguarding issues?

It really does. A recent example of this came at a weekend event where, after dropping donations off at the local dog shelter, my students thought it was OK to just leave.

Parents thought it was OK too, but the school still had responsibility to see them off safely. This is why our visits policy, whether it is a trip to the local park or to the US, follows the same procedure as is the case in UK schools.

I often still have to explain to parents and staff why we need a closed campus or why a new cleaner needs to be trained, go through the policy and take a level 1 equivalent test before starting.

With parents, it can be challenging. For instance, a couple of years ago, a student was accused of inappropriate behaviour and during our investigation, a parent of the accused said “boys will be boys”.

That wasn’t an easy moment but, being an international school, we make it clear that the values we hold must be adhered to if families want their children educated here, including our international perspective on safeguarding and how we behave towards each other.

What are your processes for following up on incidents?

Our DSL, deputy DSL and school counsellor have an established set of routines and practices around disclosure and the next steps, especially if it requires the involvement of an outside agency.

We keep all incidents logged and these are reported on a regular basis to the DSG at the full governors’ meeting, and any serious incident will be raised in the weekly meetings with them.

Staff have had to be trained not to try to lead or resolve an issue but to pass it up in the system to a trained/responsible staff member in the school. Their details are displayed on notice boards so everyone knows who they are.

Rob Ford is director of Heritage International School in Chisinau, Moldova