Getting hold of the policies and analysing them

At the time I started my survey, about 40% of Coventry's schools had their safeguarding policy available online on the school's website. For the remainder, I had to write to the school and ask for a copy of the policy. Some promptly sent the policy on request, but the request appeared to cause considerable consternation at some of the schools. One headteacher responded to the request as follows.

Dear Mr West

Following advice from the Local Authority could you please let me know in what capacity you are making this request.

I replied. "I am a member of the public compiling a survey of child protection policies. It shouldn't really matter who I am, you are a public body with a statutory obligation under the Freedom of Information Act to make this information available on request, as the advice from the LEA should have made clear."

Another headteacher asked

Hello
Please confirm your child's name & class.

to which I replied "I do not have a child at the school. This is not relevant. I am a member of the public and you are a public body with a statutory obligation under the Freedom of Information Act to make this information available on request. Please note that many schools publish their safeguarding policies on their school website."

In both these cases, the response caused the school to produce the requested policy quite promptly.

Quite a number of schools did not respond to my initial request, and so I repeated the request stating that this should be treated as a formal request under the Freedom of Information Act. I received a number of interesting variations on "The dog ate my homework" as a result. Here is a typical example

Dear sir
Apologies for the delayed response to your email.

We are in the process of setting up a new website, which encountered some technical problems through no fault of our own.  As a result information has been lost, and we have had to start inputting data from scratch.

I will forward the safeguarding policy on my return to work next Monday.

This for a policy whose original was almost certainly on the headteacher's computer. In other cases I received a reply to the effect that the policy was on the school website. It had obviously just been put there, since I know it wasn't there before. I know very well how to do extremely thorough site-specific Google searches.

Somebody else decided that they weren't going to make life easy.

Dear Mr West

I am more than happy to provide you with a copy of our Safeguarding Policy. Please could you me the details of where you would like this posted to and I will ensure it is sent out tomorrow. Please can I also ask what link you have with the school.

I pointed out that since the policy was written on a computer, email was the simplest and cheapest way of sending it to me, and that the DfE itself routinely responds to FOI requests by email. The policy arrived two days later by email, with an accompanying excuse that "The reason for suggesting sending you a copy by post is that this is the usual way in which we respond to requests for policies."

One school actually attempted a flat refusal.

Good Morning Mr West
Thank you for you for your email.

Could you please let us know who you are and why you require the safeguarding/child protection policy?  Have you got children attending our school or is there a child or children you are concerned about? 

To which I replied.

I'm a member of the public compiling a survey of safeguarding policies. It shouldn't really matter who I am or why I want the information, as you are a public body with a statutory obligation under the Freedom of Information Act to make this information available on request.

They replied saying

Dear Mr West
We are presently upgrading our Website, hence the unavailablilty of this policy on line.
We are sorry we are unable to accomodate your request at present.

Time to push it a bit. I replied

Please treat this request as a formal request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. I wish to receive the following information.

The Safeguarding/Child Protection Policy operated by the [name of school] as of today's date (23rd September 2013).
I have made similar requests of other schools in the past. I am fully aware that I have a statutory right to the information I have requested and that it does not fall under any of the exemptions described in the Act. I suggest that you contact the LEA for confirmation of this.

 No reply. I left it 2 weeks and then wrote again

For the attention of [name deleted], Headteacher.

On September 21 I requested by email a copy of your school's safeguarding/child protection policy. I received a reply from [name deleted] asking for the reason for my request, and then a subsequent reply refusing it. I have not thus far received the document I requested.

Please note that this request is being made under the Freedom of Information Act (2000). Schools are among the public bodies to which the Act applies. You have 20 working days from the date of the request to provide the information. 14 working days have now passed.

I look forward to your early reply.

The policy was coughed up 4 days later.

Once I had all the policies, it was time to analyse them. With 114 policies to look over, this took a number of evenings. The results were quite shocking. Remember that all the criteria are taking from one or other of the government's statutory guidance documents. These criteria form the bare minimum for a working policy which will reliably ensure that serious child protection concerns are reported to the authorities. There is no excuse for any school not to score 10 out of 10.

Of the 114 schools, only 2 scored a full 10. Let me give credit where it is due and congratulate St Thomas More Catholic Primary School and Stivichall Primary School.

The mean score across all 114 schools was just 5. That quite frankly is dreadful. Let me offer a comparison here. I also recently checked the child protection policy that was in force at Bishop Bell School when Jeremy Forrest abducted a pupil to France. The Serious Case Review into Forrest found that the school had made no contemporaneous formal records of the child protection concerns which existed about Forrest and the girl prior to the abduction, and that the school had subsequently created and backdated paperwork. Bishop Bell also scored 5.

Little Heath Primary School is the school that Daniel Pelka attended in the last six months of his life. At the trial of his mother and her partner, various teachers gave evidence not only concerning his low weight and constant hunger, but also of evidence of bruising and other injuries, including what appeared to be strangulation marks on his neck. None of these was reported as a child protection concern, and again no records were kept. Little Heath scored 2.

The headteacher of Little Heath at the time of Daniel's death is now head of Grangehurst Primary School. Grangehurst also scores 2. In fact 16 schools in Coventry score 2 or less. One school scored zero.


Here is the complete list of schools each with their score.

School	Score
Aldermans Green Community Primary School	7
Aldermoor Farm Primary School	8
Alice Stevens School	Did not respond
All Saints Church of England Primary School	5
All Souls Catholic Primary School	6
Allesley Hall Primary School	5
Allesley Primary School	4
Bablake Junior School	6
Bablake School	6
Baginton Fields School	4
Barr's Hill School and Community College	5
Bishop Ullathorne Catholic School	Did not respond
Blue Coat Church of England School and Music College	4
Broad Heath Community Primary School	7
Caludon Castle School	3
Cannon Park Primary School	5
Cardinal Newman Catholic School A Specialist Arts and Community College	4
Cardinal Wiseman Catholic School and Language College	8
Castle Wood Special School	Did not respond
Charter Primary School	4
Christ The King Catholic Primary School	2
Clifford Bridge Primary School	3
Corley Centre	5
Corpus Christi Catholic School	9
Coundon Court	7
Coundon Primary School	2
Courthouse Green Primary School	5
Coventry Muslim School	6
Davenport Lodge School	5
Earlsdon Primary School	1
Eastern Green Junior School	5
Edgewick Community Primary School	2
Ernesford Grange Community School	4
Ernesford Grange Primary School	0
Finham Park School	8
Finham Primary School	8
Focus School - Coventry Campus	6
Foxford School and Community Arts College	7
Frederick Bird Primary School	Did not respond
Good Shepherd Catholic School	2
Gosford Park Primary School	5
Grace Academy Coventry	5
Grange Farm Primary School	2
Grangehurst Primary School	2
Hearsall Community Primary School	3
Henley College Coventry	5
Henley Green Primary	6
Hereward College of Further Education	6
Hill Farm Primary School	7
Holbrook Primary School	9
Hollyfast Primary School	3
Holy Family Catholic Primary School	6
Howes Community Primary School	8
John Gulson Primary School	6
John Shelton Community Primary School	7
Joseph Cash Primary School	9
Keresley Grange Primary School	4
King Henry VIII School	7
Leigh Church of England Primary School	5
Limbrick Wood Primary School	3
Little Heath Primary School	2
Longford Park Primary School	3
Lyng Hall School	9
Manor Park Primary School	8
Moat House Primary School	7
Moseley Primary School	2
Mount Nod Primary School	6
Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Primary School	6
Park Hill Primary School	6
Parkgate Primary School	8
Pattison College	9
Pearl Hyde Community Primary School	6
Potters Green Primary School	5
President Kennedy School and Community College	5
Radford Primary School	5
Ravensdale Primary School	3
Richard Lee Primary School	2
Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School	5
Sherbourne Fields School	4
Sidney Stringer Academy	6
Sir Frank Whittle Primary School	6
Southfields Primary School	3
Sowe Valley Primary School	2
Spon Gate Primary School	9
St Andrew's Church of England Infant School	5
St Anne's Catholic Primary School	4
St Augustine's Catholic Primary School	4
St Bartholomew's Church of England Primary School	5
St Christopher Primary School	5
St Elizabeth's Catholic Primary School, Foleshill	9
St GReqory's Catholic Primary School	2
St John Fisher Catholic Primary School	4
St John Vianney Catholic Primary School	5
St John's Church of England Primary School	2
St Laurences CofE Primary School	4
St Mary and St Benedict Catholic Primary School	6
St Osburg's Catholic Primary School	3
St Patrick's Catholic Primary School	3
St Peter and Paul Catholic Primary School	6
St Thomas More Catholic Primary School	10
Stanton Bridge Primary School	4
Stivichall Primary School	10
Stoke Heath Primary School	3
Stoke Park School and Community Technology College	5
Stoke Primary School	3
Stretton Church of England Academy	6
Templars Primary School	3
The Westwood Academy	4
Three Spires School	5
Tile Hill Wood School and Language College	4
Tiverton School	5
Walsgrave Church of England Primary School	5
Whitley Abbey Primary School	7
Whitley Academy	3
Whitmore Park Primary School	8
Whoberley Hall Primary School	2
Willenhall Community Primary School	4
Woodlands Academy	3
Wyken Croft Primary School	2

 


I decided also to take a look at the two most recent OFSTED reports for Little Heath, the inspection that occurred a year before Daniel died, and the one which occurred nine months afterwards. The March 2011 inspection said this about safeguarding at the school.

Procedures for safeguarding pupils are robust; staff and the designated governor are well informed about child protection. Good practice in multi-agency work to support individual pupils is an example of the school's effective partnership work.

Less than a year after that inspection, Daniel was dead.

In January 2013, 9 months after Daniel died, OFSTED inspected the school again. This was their opinion of safeguarding.

The arrangements for the safeguarding of pupils meet requirements. The school carries out the necessary checks on adults to ensure that they are suitable to work with children.

The truly shocking thing is that the school's child protection policy for the first inspection hadn't been reviewed since 2009. Moreover it was not reviewed and updated in light of Daniel's death, at the time of the second inspection and during the SCR, the same policy was still in place. And OFSTED didn't notice. Since I picked up the policies for the survey, Little Heath has updated its policy. It now scores 3.

I have looked at the most recent OFSTED report for every school in Coventry. On safeguarding, OFSTED doesn't have a bad word to say about any of them.Either I'm terribly wrong, or OFSTED are. I wouldn't normally cleaim greater expertise on a subject than the professional inspecting body for that subject, but I do have to wonder what on earth is going on here. These policies are with few exceptions pretty dire. But OFSTED grades just about all the schools grade 2 "Good" on safeguarding. Mind you, they graded Bishop Bell School grade 1 "Outstanding" in their last inspection before Jeremy Forrest did his moonlight flit, and this a school that kept no contemporaneous formal records and backdated documents in its evidence to the subsequent Serious Case Review.

I've come across a number of other cases where there have been serious safeguarding failures at schools and OFSTED had seen nothing. Strange though it may seem, as far as safeguarding is concerned, OFSTED shows every sign of not knowing its arse from its elbow.

And that is a serious worry, because if schools that have been graded Outstanding by OFSTED can be as bad as Bishop Bell, and almost all the schools in Coventry can have substandard policies without OFSTED noticing, then the current situation is that we cannot rely on good safeguarding practice existing in any school in the country. I have no reason to think that Coventry's schools are exceptionally bad, so the chances are that the same situation exists across the whole country.


Any of the schools above who read this article, you are welcome to contact me in order to receive an explanation of how I arrived at your score. My interest is in improving safeguarding and protecting children, and I am happy to co-operate with anybody to achieve that end. There is a link with my email address on the right-hand side of this page. But don't complain to me that you have had a good OFSTED, if you have read the entire article you will see why that cuts no ice with me.

In my next article I will describe the process of bring this information to Coventry Education Department and Coventry LSCB prior to an article being published in the Sunday Times.