Resource contents
If you are the project leader, it is helpful for you to summarise the characteristics of your setting prior to the audit. Information to record includes categories of pupil needs and any recent concerns or recorded incidents relating to any form of child sexual abuse – from low-level incidents through to the most serious. You may have this information easily to hand, or you can collate it on our ‘Characteristics of your education setting’ template [Download, .docx 223 KB].
The next step is to arrange a full staff meeting where you brief your colleagues about why your setting is using this framework to develop and implement a whole-school approach to child sexual abuse. You can use or adapt our staff briefing handout [Download, .docx 223 KB] to support this meeting.
If you are the project leader, it is helpful for you to summarise the characteristics of your setting prior to the audit. Information to record includes categories of pupil needs and any recent concerns or recorded incidents relating to any form of child sexual abuse – from low-level incidents through to the most serious. You may have this information easily to hand, or you can collate it on our ‘Characteristics of your education setting’ template.
The next step is to arrange a full staff meeting where you brief your colleagues about why your setting is using this framework to develop and implement a whole-school approach to child sexual abuse. You can use or adapt our staff briefing handout to support this meeting.
Identifying colleagues to help you conduct the audit
The audit of your setting will be divided into six areas of practice, covering whether and how:
- your ethos, values and culture promote safe and respectful relationships
- staff are equipped to notice, respond to and prevent child sexual abuse
- learning opportunities throughout the curriculum promote safe and healthy relationships
- engagement with and support for children is underpinned by trauma informed practice
- engagement with your community and professional networks informs your response to child sexual abuse
- you respond to concerns about child sexual abuse promptly, fairly and consistently.
These six areas do not need to be audited all at once; if you have limited time and resources for a full audit in your setting over the next academic year, talk to your leadership team about the potential to defer auditing some areas until the following year.
We recommend that you enlist at least one named colleague to complete and ‘own’ each of the six audit areas; this will ensure that a range of viewpoints are captured, and will reduce your workload at this stage. It may be appropriate for multiple colleagues to co‑own sections.
With your leadership team, identify which colleague(s) will coordinate the audit of each area of practice. Colleagues to consider involving include the RSHE lead, the Pastoral/SEND lead, the Safeguarding Governor/Trustee, lunch/break‑time supervisors, and the admin/IT lead for data.