Safeguarding

Early Help for Families 

There are organisations and services across Medway that can support you and your family.  Medway provide support early on and as soon as it is needed,  to help families thrive and resolve any challenges you and your family may be facing before they become too difficult to manage.

What is Early Help? 

Early Help is any additional support that a family may need, to prevent concerns escalation and to try and prevent a family hitting crisis point and needing statutory services to become involved.  This Early Help can be provided by a number of different professionals/agencies and is an opportunity to support a family at the right time for them. It can transform children's and families' lives giving them the resilience they need to thrive. The aim is to ensure that families needing additional help have one lead person in their lives, so that they do not have to tell their story more than once.  Early Help will work with you to understand the issues and will get the support needed to help you and your family get back on track

Early Help is a optional service, and therefore it is your choice whether to have this or not. 

Early help could help with issues about:

• School, education or training 
• home and life relationships
• health and emotional wellbeing
• work, finances or housing
• domestic violence or abuse
• crime or anti-social behaviour 

If you would like extra help and support, then let the school pastoral team aware or make an early help referral online

*Please see Online information under 'Online Safety' https://www.hoo-st-werburgh.medway.sch.uk/key-information/safeguarding

Medway Safeguarding Children Partnership

Medway Council Concerned About A Child You can also phone 01634 334 466 or the 24 hour emergency number 03000 419 191.

Alternative telephone numbers if you have concerns about a child:

NSPCC on 0808 800 5000
Child Line on 0800 1111
Medway Police on 0162 2690 690

Other useful contact details:

Non-emergency number 101
Emergency number 999
LADO (Local Authority Designated Officer) – Tel: 01634 331307 / 01634 336 204

Useful links to:

NSPCC
NSPCC Whistleblowing helpline is 0800 028 2085 (8am – 8pm Monday to Friday) or via email help@nspcc.org.uk
CEOP

Keeping Children Safe in Education 2025

Parent and Carers Safeguarding Leaflet 2026

HSW Child Friendly Safeguarding Polices: 

• HSW Child Friendly Safeguarding policy
• HSW Child Friendly Anti-Bullying Policy

Keeping you safe poster

Working Together To Safeguard Children

NSPCC or call 0808 800 5000

Child Line or call 0800 1111

Childline Kids

Childline 1-2-1 Counsellor Chat

Kooth

If you have any concerns about your child/ren, please feel free to reach out to our inclusion team.  We are hear to listen and support with any issues that you may have. 

Mrs Banks (Head of Inclusion and Pastoral Services) 

Mrs Pace (Pastoral Welfare Manager)

Nurture team

Mrs Winters (Nurture Lead)

Mrs Sam Potts (Nurture TA) 

SEND

Mrs Gallacher (Senco)

Online-Safety is an important part of keeping children safe at our school.

We can only be successful in keeping children safe online if we work with parents to ensure the online-Safety message is consistent. It is important that parents speak to their children about how they can keep safe and behave appropriately online.

It’s essential to be realistic - banning the internet or technology will not work and it often makes a child less likely to report a problem. Education around safe use is essential. 

CEOP (The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre) delivers a multi-agency service dedicated to tackling the abuse and exploitation of children in the real and ‘e’ world. Often it is referred to as an online 999. By clicking on the button, young people and parents can get advice on a range of issues such as viruses, hacking and dealing with bullying online.

Read more information about online safety on:

Our Safety Centre
Internet Matters
Internet Watch Foundation
Stop It Now
Childline Safety Online

UK Safer Internet Centre

ThinkUKnow

Internet Matters 

How do I ensure my child is kept safe online? 

It is important that pupils know what to do to stay safe when accessing the internet.  The following are some ways you can help your children to stay safe online. 

• Help your child to avoid seeing inappropriate content online by discouraging them for clicking on pop-ups or links that they have not been directed to by their class teacher. 
• Ensure they know to tell a trusted adult straight away if they see anything they don't like online or are worried about what someone has said them online. 
• Talk to your child and remind them to not share any personal data online.
• Ensure they are aware to be mindful of how they speak to others online and remember that all actions they take have a digital footprint.

Child friendly search engines 

Swiggle 

Kiddle

Alarms

At Hoo St Werburgh Primary School and The Marlborough we strive to provide a caring ethos where everyone in the school community feels safe, confident, valued and respected.  By promoting and environment with this ethos, Hoo St Werburgh and The Marlborough participates in a police led initiative called Operation Encompass.  This is a partnership between schools and the police that helps schools to better support any child where a domestic incident has been reported to the police from their home. 

Following a domestic incident, the police will made contact with the child's school via a secure email and will communicate relevant information to a nominated, fully-trained member of our safeguarding team.  This will ensure that as a school, we are mad aware early enough, to support children and young people in a way that means they feel safe, supported and listened to.  It will also provide an opportunity for school to offer support to the whole family.  Where everyone can live and work together in a supportive way, enables all to reach their full potential, emotionally, socially, and intellectually.

Please click on here for more information. 

What is the Prevent strategy?

Prevent is a government strategy designed to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorist or extremist causes.

The Prevent strategy covers all types of terrorism and extremism, including the extreme right wing, violent Islamist groups and other causes.

PREVENT Guidance for schools and childcare providers on preventing children and young people

Prevent Policy 

HSW Prevent Policy 2026

Marlborough Prevent Policy 2026 

Prevent Risk Assessment

Educate Against Hate

This is an important government website that provide advice and information about protecting children from extremism and radicalisation. Please note the poster in the staff corridor.

How does the Prevent strategy apply to schools?

From July 2015 all schools have a duty to safeguard children from radicalisation and extremism.

This means we have a responsibility to protect children from extremist and violent views the same way we protect them from drugs or gang violence.

The Prevent strategy is not just about discussing extremism itself, which may not be appropriate for younger children. However, it is about teaching children values such as tolerance and mutual respect.

Importantly, we can provide a safe place for pupils to discuss any issues so they better understand how to protect themselves.

Please take a moment to read our Trust Safeguarding Policy 2025