Advice welcome

[Kaycee]

We have just been through one of the most distressing and intrusive periods of our life and we have concerns that due process has not been followed.

In december last year we received a call to say an anonymous referral had been made to NSPCC and we discussed this with social services who took no further action. In March this year we had a call from the duty team at social services to state that another anonymous call had been made to NSPCC including significant allegations. They initiated a section 17 enquiry (children in need).

We met with a social worker, perfectly pleasant individual just doing her job, we went through the allegations, she spoke with the children, checked medical and police records and at the end decided no further action. She considered the allegations malicious.

It came to light during this process social services had some concern regarding the individual making these allegations. It appears that the anonymous caller to the NSPCC is a teacher at my child's school. They asked for for feedback on what action had been taken but did not want to be identified, this is not allowed under normal safeguarding procedures.


In my mind this is a breach of any school safeguarding policy. The social worker broached the issue with the HT who stated they would take no action with regard to the teacher because she has "no reason to suspect the allegations were untrue and the member of staff in question had acted outside school hours", the social worker also suggested that the HT had lied to them and she suspected some collusion between the HT and the teacher in question.

This has actually shocked me, what would be the appropriate method of addressing this issue. Can I for example demand social services address this from a safeguarding perspective? To note I have raised a number of issues with the school in an appropriate manner about the behaviour of this particular teacher, who is I should note the deputy safeguarding lead for the school, and these have been dismissed as vexatious. One of these issues relates to the extent to which this teacher singles out my child and for want of a better word "bullies" them.

I am not vexatious, I have raised legitimate concerns in an appropriate manner, writing to head stating my concerns and asking them to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Any advice welcome.

[Kati]

Re: Advice welcome

tagging [MENTION=15129]Crazy council[/MENTION] [MENTION=8640]leclerc[/MENTION] for advice xx

[leclerc]

Re: Advice welcome

The thing that does not make sense is that the Teacher appears to have no contact with yourself outside of school and, rather than following the school's own safeguarding policies(you have a right to ask for them from the school btw), chooses to make an allegation outside of school hours in their own time. If the school was not aware that the teacher was doing so then that is a bit strange. Usually, there would be a designated individual who deals with safeguarding issues. The reason for this is mainly for a second opinion because what one person might rush to judge is abuse(think the recent case of a father and daughter at a travelodge recently) another person might reasonably interpret as differently. I do understand the issue that the teacher may have had reasonable suspicion but taking action outside of the school or not in conjunction with the school's safeguarding policy might constitute a breach of their contract. Who is not to say that the teacher took a dislike to you and is being vindictive?

Is there anyway to clarify whether the teacher concerned followed school guidelines on safeguarding?
This is the blurb from the NSPCC on safeguarding and schools: https://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-...abuse-neglect/

Ask the school for it's safeguarding guidelines.

[Kaycee]

Re: Advice welcome

I have checked the safeguarding policy, I have also had safeguarding training myself in relation to education. This is a breach of the policy and the keeping children safe in education guidelines published by the department of education. I am quite clear this is a vindictive act aimed to cause harm and distress. I have in the past challenged the teacher in question about the use of illegal exclusions and about their aggressive behaviour towards my child. By challenge I mean write to and speak to the HT in a reasonable manner. I think my question is whether the social worker, who is aware of the safeguarding breach has to take action? I intend on making a formal complaint to the governing body as a first stage, but with the holidays coming to a close I have concerns about the teachers irrational and vindictive behaviour and how I can ensure the HT takes appropriate steps to ensure my child is safe while procedures are undertaken. Could I for example write to the head outline briefly the concern and request the teacher in question has no unsupervised contact. I should add I have quite a lot of experience of working with schools, teachers and local authorities and in my experience they are not the most transparent organisations to deal with.

[leclerc]

Re: Advice welcome

Have you tried contacting the Head of Governors at the school and asking for an informal conversation as you are considering going to the local authority HR department(I would not go to the head teacher if they have ignored the issue already but the person who hired her would be the board of governors and a word might be appropriate prior to anything more formal).