Safe Working Practice

Teaching Personnel's top priority is your safety and the pupils you work with. 

We maintain stringent vetting standards to keep children safe in education. We also want you to remain safe while at work. This means following all relevant Health and Safety guidance.

To ensure we all do everything possible to safeguard and promote the welfare of pupils, please review our expectations and your responsibilities as outlined below.

Everyone who comes into contact with children and their families has a role to play in safeguarding children. School staff are critical as they can identify concerns early and provide help for children to prevent concerns from escalating. Teachers and teaching assistants working through Teaching Personnel should ensure they:

• Protect children from any form of harm or maltreatment.
• Provide a safe environment where children can learn.
• Identify children who may need extra help or who are suffering, or are likely to suffer, significant harm and take appropriate action.
• Only use physical restraint and reasonable force in very exceptional circumstances and only as a last resort.

We offer free Child Protection in Education training to all registered candidates via a specialist online training provider. We expect all candidates to complete this training and refresh their knowledge annually.

All staff working in schools are expected to make judgements about their behaviour to secure the best interests and welfare of the children in their charge. In doing this, you must understand which behaviours constitute safe practice and which behaviours you must avoid. Teaching Personnel staff should:

• Refrain from giving their personal contact details to children or young people, including their mobile telephone number and details of any blogs, social media profiles or personal websites.
• Only use equipment, e.g. mobile phones, provided by the organisation to communicate with children, making sure that parents have given permission for this form of communication to be used.
• Ensure that relationships with children and young people clearly occur within the boundaries of a respectful professional relationship.
• Avoid any conduct that would lead any reasonable person to question their motivation and intentions.

For further guidance, please read this document, produced by the Safer Recruitment Consortium.

Radicalisation is defined as the act or process of making a person more radical or favouring extreme or fundamental changes in political, economic or social conditions, institutions or habits of the mind. Extremism is defined as the holding of extreme political or religious views.

It's essential that all educators understand Prevent and their role in helping schools meet their Prevent duty. The Home Office has produced key resources, workshops and free training programmes to help you understand Prevent and keep students safe from extremism and radicalisation. 

Find out more about Prevent. 

The Health and Safety Act 1974 imposes a duty on employees to take care of themselves and anyone else who may be affected by their actions or failings. As an adult with a duty of care towards children, the need to be vigilant and maintain a responsible attitude towards safety in schools is paramount. 

All Teaching Personnel staff should ensure they:

• Are aware of specific health and safety policies, fire, and accident procedures in their places of work.
• Report any accident or health and safety incident to a relevant member of staff.
• Ensure they have the right training and qualifications required should they wish to administer first aid and/or any agreed medication.

While any qualified teacher can undertake general supervision in schools, there are certain subjects where staff should ensure that they have the relevant qualifications, experience and training before undertaking (e.g. Physical Education, Design Technology, Resistant Materials, Food Technology).