Safeguarding
At Welling School, your safety and wellbeing is our priority. We uphold high standards of safeguarding for our students, staff and community.
The school offers many opportunities for students to learn about healthy and safe life choices and works hard to provide a caring and supportive environment. We recognise that some students may need more support than others and have a strong pastoral system which will provide a variety of additional support options if needed. We also work closely with external agencies such as the Bexley Mental Health in Schools team.
Our Safeguarding team is available during the school day to receive any concerns about students. Concerns that occur outside of term time or outside of the school day should be referred for support via the links below.
Our safeguarding team:
Designated Safeguarding Lead: Ms H Loughlin
Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead: Mrs L Akers
Safeguarding team:
- Mr P Hemsley (Deputy Headteacher / Safeguarding Team)
- Mrs S Mahoney (Safeguarding Team)
- Mr R Steele (ACE Tutor)
- Ms J Davies (ACE Tutor)
The team are contactable on dsl@wellingschool-tkat.org or via the main reception on 020 8304 8531 during normal school hours (term time).
If your concern is outside of school hours please visit the Bexley or Greenwich Social Care Websites (details below) or, in an emergency, call 999.
Bexley Children's Social Services - worried about a child?
Greenwich Children's Social Services - Report your concerns about a child
External support:
Please visit the link below for additional support that is available for mental health and wellbeing locally.
https://www.bexleylocaloffer.uk/Services/5398
Other useful websites:
Childline - counselling for children and young people
Think U Know - support for young people and families of those who have suffered online child sexual abuse
Kooth - Online mental health and wellbeing community for young people
Headscape - a resource that provides self help advice for young people with mental health concerns
Bexley CAMHS MHST
The Bexley Mental health support teams in school is a new initiative that looks to help young people with emerging mental health difficulties access targeted support and psychoeducation before their difficulties become severe and they would require full CAMHS support.
Taking a whole school approach with our educational colleagues we will be discussing with school, processes that will help the Mental health of the pupil community we also look to facilitate groups & workshops that discuss an psych educate on numerous mental health subjects such as anxiety, exam stress, self esteem, relationships and body image. These will be both general, such as towards specific year groups or targeted towards those needing help in those areas.
Work can also be commenced individually for low mood and anxiety, we ask the school to identify those young people who may be beginning to show difficulties in these areas and refer them to us. We will then get some information from parents and the young people themselves before undertaking a manualised approach to helping them. The manuals are generally 6-8 sessions of CBT based guided self help, which will help them to identify their difficulties and think of solutions to these. This work can be conducted within school, virtually or at our CAMHS base in Erith.
If your child/children/young people are showing signs of Mental health difficulties, which are concerning you please contact the safeguarding team who can make a referral on your behalf.
Online safety:
The online world is changing rapidly and trends and new developments can be hard to follow. There are several organisations who regularly publish information to support parents and professionals in order to support. Some are listed below:
All Welling School parents have free access to National Online Safety which offers video tutorials on various topics relating to online safety.
Details of how to access this have been sent out via email but can be sent again either through reception, or by contacting the safeguarding team directly.
National Online Safety have a number of guides to support parents and carers in their understanding of various online platforms. Below is a quick guide for things to be aware of in relation to Chomebooks.
