NYSCP

School Safeguarding Audit 2020-2021

The inspection of safeguarding remains a key area within the framework for school inspection. The impact of safeguarding arrangements will be evidenced under the judgement on the quality of leadership and management and also its impact on the personal development, behaviour and welfare of children and learners. Inspectors will arrive at a judgement about whether the early years setting or school has effective safeguarding arrangements or not. This judgement will contribute towards the overall judgement on the effectiveness of leadership and management.

Safeguarding incidents continue to put safeguarding firmly in the spotlight in North Yorkshire. Where schools have encountered difficulties, or children’s safety has been put at risk, this has often been associated with one or all of the following:

a lack of clarity amongst stakeholders about safeguarding procedures
complacency or lack of rigour in implementing safeguarding procedures
failure to monitor safeguarding procedures
the failure of senior leaders to establish suitably robust safeguarding procedures

The North Yorkshire Safeguarding Children Partnership (NYSCP) School Safeguarding Audit is intended to provide all schools (maintained, federated, free, academies, independent and special) within North Yorkshire a method of assessing their safeguarding and related practices to ensure that adequate arrangements are in place to ensure the safeguarding and wellbeing of children and young people.

The audit is also used to provide the North Yorkshire Safeguarding Children Partnership with assurance that adequate safeguarding arrangements are in place within schools and influence future NYSCP Strategies and training.

All schools in North Yorkshire (maintained schools, federated schools, free schools, independent schools, special schools and academies for both primary and secondary phases of education) are requested to complete the audit. This should be approved by their governing board, trustees and other relevant governance roles and returned to the NYSCP by emailing the completed audit tool in Excel format (please DO NOT convert to PDF) to nyscp@northyorks.gov.uk no later than the close of business on Wednesday 31 March 2021.