On 20.08.18 I attended one of my induction days and the main focuses were around safeguarding, prevent duty and e-safety. Before I started the induction, I thought that my knowledge around these areas were quite strong due to my wealth of experience as a safeguarding officer in my previous job within a nursery. My roles and responsibilities as safeguarding officer involved working with outside agencies, attending child protection and child in need meetings, recording and reporting any safeguarding concerns and ensuring that the other practitioners had my full support in identifying and reporting any concerns. The involvement that I had with the meetings and the training courses that I was required to attend ensured that my knowledge and understanding of safeguarding was kept up to date. In particular, I had to know the four types of abuse; physical, emotional, neglect and sexual. This was so that I could identify it in my everyday practice and voice my opinion in meetings about if I thought that a child was at risk of any of these types of abuse and if so what plan I thought the child should be on. Therefore, when I attended the induction, I felt confident with my existing knowledge of general safeguarding, types of abuse and the signs and symptoms and felt that this was reflected through my answers and the work within my group. However, I soon realised that I did not know as much about safeguarding in regard to social media as I thought. I quickly learnt that the modern-day social media has a great impact on teacher’s day to day life as it is a great influence on young minds. Therefore, teacher’s need an update to knowledge of social media and the current ‘trends’ to be able to effectively safeguard children (part 2- having regard for the need to safeguard pupils well-being, in accordance with statutory provisions). From the e-safety training I also questioned my own personal social media site. I wondered if I had fully protected myself from allegations, threats and general judgement from others. The stories that were told to us made me worry and eager to check my privacy settings. (part 2- observing proper boundaries appropriate to a teacher’s professional position). The prevent duty training that we received opened some very interesting debates within the group about a scenario given to us. The scenario given to us was about a mature student who had strong beliefs that our armed forces should not go to war as he was concerned about the loss of innocent lives. The student was very vocal about his beliefs and had arranged and advertised a peaceful protest. The debates within our group highlighted to me that there is a thin line between having a strong belief and extremism and as professionals we need to identify the difference and recognise if a strong belief turns into extremism (part 2- not undermining fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect, and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs). The prevent duty training made me question whether as professional figures who children look to for advice and support, do we address major events and allow children the opportunity to talk about it enough or do we want to try to hide as much of the truth about the events as we can away from the children. It made me wonder what the best course of action is and if that is to address the major events, how would we do it to such young children (part 2- observing proper boundaries appropriate to a teacher’s professional position). I need to ensure that I continuously update my knowledge around current ‘trends’ to be able to fully understand e-safety. From this understanding, I hope to be able to teach the children about how to stay safe on the internet. It also made me think that if my knowledge about e-safety has not been as good as it is going to be from now on, how many other adults with children do not fully understand how to protect their children and themselves on the internet. Therefore, my future practice will also involve passing my knowledge onto parents possibly through newsletters and leaflets (part 2- having regard for the need to safeguard pupils well-being, in accordance with statutory provisions). When I got home from the training session, I checked and updated all of my privacy settings to ensure that I am protecting myself as much as possible (part 2- observing proper boundaries appropriate to a teacher’s professional position). The prevent duty training which we received today will have a big impact on my future practice as I know that I need to open my mind to the possibility that extremism can happen anywhere, even in our little, quiet local village. As a professional and the children’s champion I need to be able to recognise when it is happening and act appropriately (part 2- not undermining fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect, and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs). I also need to understand that any national major crisis can be a very sensitive issue and how I deal with that will depend on the children, the school’s policy and the circumstances of the event. It is not a decision that can be made now or generalised. Focused next steps to impact on your progress or the progress of the children in your care: Familiarise myself with the school’s safeguarding and ICT policy Ensure that I know who the designated safeguarding lead of the school is Keep up to date with my knowledge of current internet ‘trends’ All Stories