This blog will focus on the implementation of safeguarding in the primary classroom and how safeguarding procedures can creative positive experiences for children.
I begin by answering the question, what is safeguarding?… Safeguarding policies are put into place to protect children and ensure they are able to learn in an environment that is safe. The Department for Education states that safeguarding policies should have specific outcomes for children that include staying safe, being healthy, making a positive contribution, enjoying and achieving, and developing skills for economic well-being (Dfe, 2009). These outcomes will allow for a stimulating learning environment based on mutual respect between teacher-child and child-child.
Planning and implementing safeguarding procedures into the classroom need to meet environmental, physical and emotional factors. When attending to environmental issues, care should be made to ensure that children will not be harmed as a result of entering the classroom. Such examples may include ensuring chairs are suitable to sit on and removing any obstructions from fire exits. I have seen evidence of this within my SBT1. The class teacher has been using portable electric heaters to warm the classroom as a result of a heating failure. The heaters are always removed and stored away prior to children entering the classroom to avoid burns or trips. It may not always be possible to ensure that every aspect of our classroom is ‘safe’ due to restricted space or the nature of activities being undertaken, however it is important to recognise and be aware of the risks within our classroom.
Children need to be made aware of how their physical actions could harm themselves and/or others. Educating children on how to hold scissors correctly and setting rules about running or boisterous bodily contact within the classroom are just a sample of strategies that may reduce the chances of injury. The aim of implementing safeguarding procedures is not to scare children or to stop them from being involved with ‘normal’ school experiences, but to make children aware of their actions. A good strategy that I have observed which encourages children to think and be accountable for their actions is the use of ‘choices’. Children are encouraged to make good choices in relation to how they approach situations and are informed of the bad choices they and others make.
The role of the teacher is significant towards recognising emotional needs and difficulties within the classroom. The teacher needs to be able to create a calm environment where he/she can build trustworthy relationships with the children. This relationship is what can be used to intervene and/or resolve many issues that may include bullying, racism, neglect and abuse. Safeguarding can address emotional factors through classroom activities such as circle time. This would be a useful strategy during P.S.H.E/Citizenship. Issues that are causing some concern for individual pupils can be explored discretely thus allowing children to understand they do not have o face difficult problems and situations alone.
Safeguarding is an area that teachers should continuously be aware of and abiding by school safeguarding policies and procedures, children should be able to have positive school experiences.
References
Dfe (2009) http://www.education.gov.uk/consultations/downloadableDocs/Working%20Together%20to%20Safeguard%20ChildrenV2.pdf. Last accessed 23rd October 2013.
Child Development 
This is a lovely summary of the huge topic of safeguarding. I like how you’ve highlighted the importance of having an ’emotionally safe’ as well as ‘physically safe’ classroom environment and led me to research this a bit more. I started to think about how I could create an emotionally safe environment and came across these ideas that I thought might be useful for others to look at too http://www.stopbullying.gov/prevention/at-school/build-safe-environment/