Education

Educational Neglect

Educational neglect refers to a parent's or carer's failure to ensure their child's educational needs are being met.  Children have a legal right to an education and so failing to send the child to school regularly is an example of educational neglect.

Oldham Educational Neglect.pdf

Oldham Educational Neglect Appendix 1 Attendance Contract.docx

Other statutory and key guidance:

Keeping Children Safe in Education

National FGM guidance for schools

RSE guidance

Guidance for Safer Working Practice May 2019

Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment guidance 2021

OSCP MA Practice Standards Final Nov 23

Vaping Support for Schools in Oldham - Sept 2023

Education Substance Misuse Policy Oldham March 2023

Flow chart Dispute Resolution Pathway

Young people and pornography information sheet 

Child Safeguarding Immersive Technologies Key Concepts

Section 175/157 of the 2002 Education Act requires governing bodies to carry out an annual review of the school’s policies and procedures and to provide information to the Local Authority about how the duties set out in the guidance have been discharged. The purpose of the Section 175/157 audit is to provide evidence that all schools, including maintained, academies, independent or any who are registered with the Department for Education are fulfilling their statutory safeguarding responsibilities. 

The Section 175/157 self-assessment audit is submitted after completing the spreadsheet that OSCP will send to your setting.  If you were unable to submit your S175/157 audit, please contact the Safeguarding Advisor for Education.

Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council S175 and 157 additional guidance.pdf

Safeguarding Action Plan 2025.docx

Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) networks are groups of DSLs working together in partnership.  The groups are usually aligned with traditional cluster models in local areas. These meetings give the opportunity for DSLs to share good practice, discuss issues related to safety in the local area and meet with colleagues from other agencies to form positive working relationships. DSL networks are led by DSLs with the support of the Safeguarding Advisor for Education.

Meetings take place every term and minutes are taken so a formal record of the meeting is made alongside an attendance record to enable review of participation. The networks take place on Microsoft Teams or face-to-face and are rotated so that there is an option for DSLs to network in person and engage in professional dialogue which is sometimes difficult when using an online platform.  The face-to-face meetings will be located at Rock Street or other venues across Oldham e.g. a school setting.  These will be agreed in advance of the date so that DSLs can make the necessary arrangements to leave school and arrange cover if needed.

DSL networks link into the Oldham Safeguarding Children’s Partnership through representation at Local Safeguarding Children Groups enabling all schools to proactively participate in the safeguarding partnership across Oldham.  This supports requirements for multi-agency working in Keeping Children Safe in Education, 2024.

DSL Network training flyer.pdf

More information to follow shortly

More information to follow shortly

Incidents which initiate the School Safe scheme
1. Suspicious people or vehicles approaching children outside or on the way to school
2. Bogus officials/suspicious people arriving in school and requesting access to children
3. Thefts etc where it is possible that a number of schools maybe targeted in the same way

The "School Safe Process", the witness carefully notes any relevant details and informs the Head Teacher or Business Manager. Consider whether contact with the police on 101 to report and obtain a police log number is required. Contact should then be made with the control room team. 

Notifications should be sent to the following email address after contacting the first response team. 

The Control Room Supervisor is Andy Livesey. Tel: 0161 770 2222
first.response2@oldham.gov.uk

The control room will take down the details and pass this onto all schools via email. 

School Safe First Response document.dot 

Benefits of School Safe
All suspicious incidents will be quickly circulated to all schools that are on school safe within the borough

Following a review of Oldham Police’s compliance with Operation Encompass a new policy has now been put in place from 1 March 2021. All domestic incidents that require an Op Encompass referral will be reviewed by police officers on MASH. Each morning from 7am they will scan the domestic incidents and where required a referral will be completed and sent out to the schools. The intention is that referral will be made within 24 hours of the incident and in most cases the morning following the incident. On Monday morning the staff will scan Friday through to Monday morning and report as soon as they can.

The CMT email is now been replaced with oldham.publicprotection@gmp.police.uk from 01/03/2021. If you have any queries and need further information, please email the above as it is monitored seven days a week 7am – 5pm daily.

OE booklet.pdf

OE-Childs-Voice-Poster-2.pdf

OE-Parents-Poster.pdf

Helpline for School Staff-Poster-.pdf

Legaslation-OE-impact-Report-2024-May-Update.pdf

The Department for Education brings together all existing information available to schools on the teaching of the RSHE curriculum. This includes teaching about relationships, sex and health, support and training materials for schools to help train teachers on relationships, sex and health education, parent guides and guidance in engaging parents on Relationships education. These can be found here:  https://www.gov.uk/guidance/teaching-about-relationships-sex-and-health

Statutory guidance on relationships education, relationships and sex education (RSE) and health education can be found here:  https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/relationships-education-relationships-and-sex-education-rse-and-health-education The updated guidance is for introduction on the 1st September 2026, but schools can implement the changes sooner if they like.

This relationships education in primary school resource supports children to live healthy, safe and fulfilled lives and to become confident, independent and responsible citizens. This free resource has been developed for Oldham Primary Schools by the Oldham Safeguarding Children Partnership together with Tough Cookies Education.  This Happy & Safe Relationships pack aims to provide teachers with support to plan and deliver relationships education in line with RSHE statutory guidance for schools.

Below are the PowerPoints and additional resource to support you to deliver the Happy and Safe Relationships resource:

Happy-and-Safe-Relationships-Primary-School-Resource.pdf

https://www.olscb.org/cms-data/depot/hipwig/Additional-Resources.zip

What is PREVENT?

PREVENT is about safeguarding children, young people or adults who may be influenced into supporting terrorism or becoming involved in terrorism.

This grooming process could happen face-to-face or on-line. Prevent deals with all kinds of terrorist threats to the UK, including the threats from organisations such as far right extremist groups, ISIS, Daesh or Al Qa’ida associated groups, animal rights violent activity or any cause that encourages violence to achieve political change. PREVENT is part of the UK’s counter-terrorism strategy.

Revised Prevent duty guidance: for England and Wales

Salford Prevent team have given us permission to use the following resource which is child and family-friendly and outlines the process after a referral to Prevent has been made and accepted.  This can be used with pupils to outline what happens next, especially Channel.

channel-journey.pdf

 What to do if you are worried about a child:

Share your concerns with your organisation’s Prevent or safeguarding lead.

Contact the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) and ask to speak to the Duty Officer:

• Phone: on 0161 770 7777
• Email: child.mash@oldham.gov.uk

More information about reporting a concern can be found here

You can also make a referral to Prevent here

If you see or hear anything that could be terrorist related you can report it to the confidential Anti-Terrorist Hotline on 0800 789 321

If a child is in immediate danger, call 999

If a child is not in immediate danger but you believe a crime may have been committed, call the Police on 101

The Police Prevent team provide advice and can be contacted on 101.

What is Channel?

Channel is a confidential, voluntary, multi-agency safeguarding programme that provides early intervention to protect vulnerable children and adults who might be susceptible to being radicalised. If left unsupported, their vulnerabilities mean they could be at risk of becoming involved in terrorist-related activity. Channel is run in every local authority in England and Wales.

More information about The PREVENT Duty and Channel can be found here

More information to follow

Oldham Directory of Services.pdf

Children_and_young_person_guide_to_working_together_to_safeguard_children.pdf

A summary guide on the changes made in Keeping Children Safe in Education (2025) is provided for easy reference:

KCSiE summary of changes OSCP.pdf

More information to follow soon