Governor Materials - Bullying and child-on-child abuse (free sample)

This is a free sample of our governor resources.  Our governor membership costs just £99+VAT per year and provides support for the safeguarding governor and the governing body. Keeping Children Safe in Education, Working Together and the inspection framework place significant responsibility on governors to maintain a strategic overview of safeguarding in their setting and require them to ensure that they are holding the DSL and senior leadership team to account. 

There is not a lot of guidance or support for this crucial role and many Safeguarding Governors feel less than confident in their role, so building on the success of our work with Designated Safeguarding Leads we have created a Safeguarding Governor membership to provide structure and advice for individuals in this important duty.

Safeguarding Network’s resource pages are all linked above and offer a great starting point to learning about child on child abuse and bullying. They also have links to further learning on the web and to useful resources at the bottom of the page.

You and other governors may want to complete Safeguarding Network’s Sexual Violence & Sexual Harassment e-learning. It is just 99p+vat and includes a certificate of completion. If your setting is a member you can ask your DSL to authorise the course for you, or contact us and we will arrange this.

Our child on child abuse materials look to provide a number of perspectives on culture. You can access the tools in the section below.

• Check through your Safeguarding, Behaviour and Anti-bullying policies and make notes of your observations. Do they make sense from the perspective of a parent or child? Do you have confidence that this is a setting that recognises the potential risks, has a strong culture that prevents child on child abuse, is approachable for students and takes these issues seriously when they do occur?
• Ofsted set out that sexual violence and sexual harassment is likely to be happening in every education setting. Does your leadership team acknowledge this and do they have a plan in place to address it?
• What data is available to the governing body? Do you have reports on child on child abuse frequency and how this has been responded to? Is child on child abuse a major problem in the school? Does an absence of data raise concern – is child on child abuse under-reported, is the log used and are your policies being followed? What is happening across your curriculum to address these areas?
• To better understand your setting’s approach have a conversation with your DSL. We’ve a template below with some key questions – there’s a focus on their perception of culture, how they understand what happens within the setting, the underpinning curriculum & policy framework and training for staff & students
• You could also talk to your DSL about completing our Sexual Violence & Sexual Harassment audit tool for your governing body. It consists of a series of statements designed to check your compliance with the statutory guidance and ensure that you are working towards a culture within your setting where sexual violence and sexual harassment is not acceptable and consistently challenged.
• Our learning walk materials below provide some specimen questions for governors to ask when they visit your setting and talk to staff, children and young people. Getting a range of perspectives will be more helpful than just hearing from one person.