As a registered charity, St Joseph's Pre-school is required to adhere to Charity Commission guidance as well as comply with UK law. In addition, Ofsted and the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory framework requires all early years providers to have policies and procedures in place to safeguard children. Furthermore, as good practice, the Pre-school endeavours to adhere to the requirements set within Keeping Children Safe in Education (latest version), though this statutory guidance is for schools and colleges, thus not mandatory for us.
To this end, St Joseph's Pre-school has a growing number of policies and procedures. All of which are available to our parents/carers, in pdf format, via this section of St Joseph's Catholic Primary School's website (parents/preschool/policies and procedures). See the attached document for more details.
Under the banner of 'Safeguarding and Child Protection', the Committee has a duty to ‘ensure all staff and parents are made aware of our safeguarding children and child protection policies and procedures’. Please note that our designated person (a member of staff) who coordinates child protection issues is Natalie Finn-Powers, her deputy is Kayleigh Niven, and that Mrs Anna Hitchings our designated officer (Committee Chair) who oversees this work.
We are also required to ensure that ‘all parents know how to make a complaint about the behaviour or actions of staff or volunteers within the setting or anyone living or working on the premises occupied by the setting, which may include an allegation of abuse’. To this end we ensure that a selection of policies and procedures are made available via our enrolment pack (zip file) and every August send out an update to parents/carers of children who are due to start with us in the September.
Note that these documents are regularly reviewed and signed off by the Committee and are GDPR compliant. The most up to date versions of the Pre-school's policies and procedures can be found here.