Part A: Prepare

For this framework to be enacted successfully, your education setting will need governors, trustees and a senior leadership team that are all fully informed about and committed to the decision to develop a whole-school approach to child sexual abuse. They will need to demonstrate visible commitment by allocating resources so that the audit, improvement planning and delivery stages run as smoothly as they can.

The senior leadership team should identify a project leader who will lead the work in your setting, and a deputy/assistant leader, just as they would for any significant improvement activity. Make sure the project leader is allocated time to understand the process and to prepare before engaging other colleagues.

Consider when it will be best to undertake this work, and how long to allow for it to take; how will working through the framework fit with your existing improvement or development plan schedules? If you intend to implement your improvement plan at the start of an academic year, you should start your audit activities at the beginning of the preceding term, or earlier if possible. This will give you time to prepare, engage colleagues and other stakeholders, and then plan and schedule your improvement activity.

Think too about how long the process is likely to take. The audit of your setting is divided into six areas of practice, which do not have to be audited all at the same time; while maintaining momentum will be important, you need to think realistically about your setting’s capacity and other current priorities.

Remember that the audit and improvement planning activities are best completed with a range of staff input. At the appropriate points, these will need to be built into existing meeting schedules so that colleagues can prepare and are not overburdened.

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.

The audit of your setting will be divided into six areas of practice, covering whether and how:

1. your ethos, values and culture promote safe and respectful relationships
2. staff are equipped to notice, respond to and prevent child sexual abuse
3. learning opportunities throughout the curriculum promote safe and healthy relationships
4. engagement with and support for children is underpinned by trauma informed practice
5. engagement with your community and professional networks informs your response to child sexual abuse
6. 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.