Safeguarding & Child Protection

At Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Primary School we are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. We are fully committed to ensuring consistent, effective safeguarding procedures are in place to support families, children and staff in our school community.

To ensure prompt communication between staff, we use CPOMS; an online system that allows us to monitor safeguarding, well-being and pastoral issues. This can also be shared with outside agencies when requesting support and is a secure way of communicating. 

Our School Safeguarding Team

If you want to know more about our procedures, please speak to one of the following:

Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL): Mrs Liz Kendall (01524 732289)

Deputy DSL: Mrs Alison Townley (01524 732289)

Safeguarding Governor: Mr Edward Hart

Chair of Governors: Mr Edward Hart

Online Safety Lead: Ms Naomi Powell  (01524 732289)

Cause for Concern

Our first priority is of course your child’s welfare and school is required to take any reasonable action to ensure the safety of its children. However, there may be occasions when we have reason to be concerned that a child may be subject to ill-treatment, neglect or other forms of abuse. We will ensure that our concerns about a child are discussed with his/her parents/carers first, unless we have reason to believe that such a move would be contrary to the child’s welfare. In this case school is obliged to follow the Child Protection procedures. 

If you are worried about a child's safety please do not hesitate to contact Mrs Kendall  or contact  Lancashire Children's Social Care on 0300 123 6720 or out of hours 0300 123 6722 (5pm - 8am).

Our Early Help Offer

Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Primary school works to provide Early Help to those children and families in the school community with emerging needs, which may not be appropriate for Social Services intervention, but require some support. Early Help means providing support to our children and families as soon as a problem emerges, at any point in a child’s life.

We understand just how complicated family life can be. From time to time, there may be situations where you need some extra help and support.

If things are not right at home, please come and talk to us.

We can help in many ways.

Our Aims:

Successful Early Help Will Mean:

Photographs and Videos:

Whilst lots of parents and carers really enjoy seeing photos and videos of their children’s school life we are very mindful of our duty of care towards all our pupils. We take the issue of safeguarding very seriously and this includes the use of photographic and video images.

Any photographs or videos taken by parents, carers and relatives at school productions, sports days or other events are for the enjoyment of individual families. They must not be used in any way that could potentially place a child at risk. This would include publishing images in any form of print or on the internet including social networking sites. This is emphasised before concerts and shows etc and where practical a record of parents and relatives taking photographs or videos is made.

We understand that in exceptional circumstances a parent or carer may not wish their child to be photographed or videoed in this way. If this is the case then please contact the headteacher to discuss how this can be best achieved.

Occasionally, the local press will be invited to take photographs of school events and special achievements. We like to use photographs of our children on our website, in school documents, for parent information meetings, newsletters and on our display screens around the school. If you do not wish photographs of your child to be used for these purposes, then please contact the Headteacher.

We have a number of policies and procedures in place that contribute to our safeguarding commitment, including our Safeguarding & Child Protection Policy which can be viewed below. 

Useful Websites & Contacts: