Safeguarding and Online Safety
Our Safeguarding Team
Lead Designated Safeguarding Lead - Mrs C Gorman
Senior Mental Health Lead - Mrs C Gorman
Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead
Mr A Hunt Miss A Turner
Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead Safeguarding Link Governor
Mrs M Walsh Mrs K Spillane
If there are any safeguarding concerns or queries, please do not hesitate to contact any of the above DSLs either by phone on 0121 675 2158, requesting to speak to a DSL or by email at enquiry@holycross-sch.net.
If you have any safeguarding concerns outside of school hours, please contact Children's Advice and Support Services through their website or by phone:
https://www.birminghamchildrenstrust.co.uk/report-a-concern
- If your concern is urgent, due to a child being at risk of immediate and significant harm. please call 999.
CASS daytime contact details (Monday to Friday only)
- Monday - Thursday 8.45am - 5.15pm
- Friday 8.45am - 4.15pm
- Phone 0121 303 1888 select Option 2 then Option 2
CASS Emergency Out of Hours (including weekends)
- Phone 0121 675 4806
Below are some links that offer support on how to keep yourself and your child safe.
Parenting Advice
https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/support-for-parents/
Protect your child from abuse
Home alone- Keeping your child safe
Please watch this video below- it is a simple way to teach your child about the 'underwear rule' and how to protect child against abuse.
If you don't feel safe then speak out.
Operation Encompass
From September 2021, Holy Cross Catholic Primary School will be taking part in a joint operation involving Birmingham Children’s Trust, Birmingham City Council, and West Midlands Police. This will formally be known as Operation Encompass.
Operation Encompass has been established to help schools provide in-school support to children who have been present at, exposed to or involved in any domestic abuse incident.
We know that children can be significantly harmed, physically and/or emotionally, during these situations, and that it also negatively affects their learning and behaviour in class.
Therefore, as part of the Operation Encompass procedure, and to help mitigate the resulting negative impact, the school will now receive a confidential phone call or email from West Midlands Police before 9am the morning after a child or young person has been witness to, or involved in, any reported domestic abuse incident. If you have any further questions about this, please do not hesitate in contacting the school office.
Online Safety
Our Online Safety Leads are Mrs Gorman and Miss Warren.
As a school, we endeavour to keep all children safe online. In order to do this, we use LGFL for our filtering system and Securus for our monitoring system on all devices within school. This alerts SLT if there are any searches and content that have been viewed which are inappropriate, identifying which user searched or viewed it. SLT will then investigate, speak to relevant pupils/staff and share with parents. SLT also test the systems with the link governor for safeguarding once a half term to ensure the filtering and monitoring system is effective. It is important to remember that as much as we would like to protect our pupils from inappropriate content online, we also need to build the pupils' resilience online so that they know what to do if they ever come across anything that is not appropriate inside or outside of school.
A Parents Guide to Technology: The UK Safer Internet Centre has created this guide to answer commonly asked questions and introduce some of the most popular devices used by children, highlighting the safety tools available and empowering parents with the knowledge they need to support their children to use these technologies safely and responsibly.
www.saferinternet.org.uk/parent-tech
Internet Parental Controls: The four big internet providers - BT, Sky, Talk Talk and Virgin Media - provide their customers with free parental controls that can be activated at any time. Video tutorials on how to download and use these controls are available on the UK Safer Internet Centre website.
www.saferinternet.org.uk/parental-controls
Safety Tools on Social Networks and other Online Services: Information and advice on the safety tools, age requirements and terms and conditions for a variety of online services popular with young people.
www.saferinternet.org.uk/safety-tools
Where to Report/Get Help
If you have any questions about Online Safety then please arrange with the school office to meet with Miss Crowley.
Need Help? Information about what to do if a child comes to you for help and advice about how to report online concerns such as cyberbullying, inappropriate content or illegal behaviour.
www.saferinternet.org.uk/need-help
Child Exploitation and Online Protection: A police agency tackling child abuse on the internet. This website includes a unique facility that enables parents and young people to make reports of actual or attempted abuse online.
CEOP’s Think U Know website contains information for children and parents, as well as a link for children to report abuse online.
Internet Watch Foundation: Part of the UK Safer Internet Centre, the IWF is the UK’s hotline for reporting illegal content found on the internet. It deals specifically with child abuse and criminally obscene images hosted in the UK and internationally.
NSPCC: If you have concerns about the safety of a child then contact the NSPCC helpline on 0808 800 5000or email help@nspcc.org.uk. Children can talk to someone for advice and support at any time by contacting ChildLine on 0800 1111 or chatting to a counsellor online at
Family Lives: A national family support charity providing help and support in all aspects of family life. Useful advice and information is available online at www.familylives.org.uk and they provide a free confidential helpline on 0808 800 2222.