Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department can take to reprimand schools where safeguarding processes for students have been inadequate.

The safety and wellbeing of children is a priority for the Government. All schools and colleges have a legal duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of pupils. Schools and colleges must have regard to the statutory safeguarding guidance, ‘Keeping children safe in education’ (KCSIE). The guidance is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/keeping-children-safe-in-education--2.

The Department’s ‘Behaviour in Schools’ guidance, updated in July 2022, states that every school should ensure pupils can be taught in a calm, safe and supportive environment. The guidance is available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1101597/Behaviour_in_schools_guidance_sept_22.pdf. Schools should be clear which behaviours are permitted and prohibited, the values, attitudes, and beliefs they promote, and the social norms and routines that should be encouraged throughout the school community.

All headteachers should ensure the school’s approach to behaviour meets the national minimum expectation that all members of the school community create a positive, safe environment in which bullying, physical threats or abuse and intimidation are not tolerated. This includes prejudice-based and discriminatory bullying. The school behaviour policy needs to ensure that any incidents of bullying, discrimination, aggression and derogatory language are dealt with quickly and effectively.

Behaviour policies should also set out what the school will do in response to non-criminal poor behaviour and bullying that occurs off the school premises, and which is witnessed by a staff member or reported to the school, including the sanctions that will be imposed on pupils.

Where concerns regarding the safeguarding arrangements in an academy are identified, the Department will work closely with the relevant academy trust to ensure statutory requirements are being met.

A trust’s obligations for ensuring the welfare and health and safety of pupils attending an academy are set out in Part 3 of The Education (Independent School Standards) Regulations 2014. Part 4 of the regulations sets out the requirements for ensuring the suitability of staff, supply staff and proprietors. The regulations are available at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/3283/made.

The regulations set out several policies which trusts must ensure are in place and require the policies to be effectively implemented. Trusts are to have regard to guidance issued by the Department, specifically KCSIE and Working together to safeguard children.

Where serious weaknesses in trust governance or non-compliance are found, the Department can take formal intervention action against trusts through a Notice to Improve, as set out in the Academy Trust Handbook, available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/60c8d0318fa8f57ce8c4621e/Academy_trust_handbook_2021.pdf.

The recent violent incident in the vicinity of Thomas Knyvett College was abhorrent. The Department has been in regular contact with the CEO of the Howard Partnership Trust. This is an ongoing police investigation, and the Trust is following their advice.