Safeguarding

Sections

• Introduction

• Understanding safeguarding

• Safeguarding in a blended learning environment

Learning objectives

By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

• Explain what safeguarding is.

• Explain the difference between safeguarding and child protection.

• Describe who safeguarding is for.

• Name your safeguarding team or officer.

• Identify the connection between blended learning and safeguarding implications.

Understanding safeguarding

What is the difference between safeguarding and child protection?

Safeguarding	Child protection
Preventative and precautionary The plans and procedures we have which keep our students safe	Recognizing signs of abuse Sits within safeguarding

Who is your safeguarding officer?

Check with your school and get in touch with the safeguarding officer. Ask them for the existing safeguarding policies and make sure they cover the use of technology and consider blended and/or flipped learning needs.

Can you think of some of the areas that your safeguarding policy should cover now that you are using a blended and/or flipped learning model?

Safeguarding in a blended learning environment

Challenges

When a school, or even a teacher, adopts a blended learning model for their students, they need to consider the implications of this new model for their current safeguarding policies to keep their students and staff safe.

In this lesson, we cover some of the challenges that a blended model can raise and the importance of addressing them in the safeguarding policy.

Let's take an example of a school that is implementing a Day A/Day B model. This model will blend face-to-face instructions with online learning. The plan is to have students come to school on Day A to learn in a face-to-face environment, and on Day B, they stay at home and complete their work online.

Now let's take a few minutes and think about the possible challenges this will raise for some of the students. We have listed a few below:

• Vulnerable students are spending more time at home, possibly in a less safe or neglectful environment instead of being in their school where they may feel safer.

• Students have less contact with their teachers on Day B, and teachers may have a lesser chance of noticing something wrong is going on.

• Higher possibility of students being victims of cyber-bullying with Day B being added to the school schedule.

• Teachers on Day B may require synchronous meetings with the students. These meetings require cameras to be turned on for the teacher to verify the students are doing their work. Having a camera turned on for all students during the class raises safeguarding challenges such as controlling what is being displayed on the camera or the students' surroundings.

• Requires an acceptable use policy that will outline student and teacher expectations of how to behave with technology and will define what acceptable behavior and use of hardware and networks look like.

Other concerns may include:

• Online safety is now a major concern. Students are working online to complete their schoolwork with a high possibility of not being supervised if their parents or carers are working or not available when the student is completing their work online.

• Students working online may be more exposed to content that is age-inappropriate or harmful, as well as being left isolated while working online, which may result in them becoming disadvantaged or being taken advantage of because they have no direct supervision.

• Students may not be aware of the dangers of sharing their personal information on the online platforms or of downloading files that may contain harmful content, viruses or spyware.

What other challenges can you think of?

Safeguarding policy example

As a teacher, you may not be the one responsible for creating or updating the safeguarding policy in your school. But you can inquire about it with your safeguarding officer or team and advocate to have the policy reviewed and updated.

Review the Pamoja Education Safeguarding Policy for an example of what should be covered in your school's safeguarding policy.

Further reading

To find out more, read the following articles.

• Safeguarding Implications for Online Learning
• Child Abuse Predator 'Handbook' Lists Ways to Target Children During Coronavirus Lockdown
• The Coronavirus Could Cause a Child Abuse Epidemic