At Garstang St Thomas School, keeping our children safe is paramount in everything we do.
Below are links to our current school safeguarding policy and the latest Keeping Children Safe in Education document:
02046_Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy 25-26_updated010726
Keeping_children_safe_in_education_from_1_September_2025
Mrs Rachel Procter (Pastoral Leader) is our designated safeguarding lead (DSL), Mr Jim Blakely (Headteacher) and Mrs Stewart (Deputy Headteacher) and are deputy DSLs. If you have any concerns that you would like to raise, please contact or come into school and speak to Mrs Procter, Mr Blakely or Mrs Stewart.
Our designated safeguarding lead (DSL), Rachel Procter, can be contacted at school on 01995 603454 or dsl@garstang-st-thomas.lancs.sch.uk.
Should you have immediate concerns for the welfare or safety of a child, you must contact the police and Children’s Social Care on 0300 123 6722.
If you think a child is in immediate danger: Don’t delay – call the police on 999
Operation Encompass
Our school is participating in the Operation Encompass partnership scheme, between local school, academies, colleges, community health agencies, and Lancashire Police.
Operation Encompass was set up to provide early reporting to schools etc., about any domestic abuse incidents that occur outside of school hours to which a young person attending our school has been exposed, and which might then have an impact on their schooling the following day. This information will be shared throughout the year, including school holidays and the weekends.
Information will only be shared with the school by the police where it is identified that a young person was present, witnessed or was involved in a domestic abuse incident.
A nominated member of school staff, known as an Encompass Key Adult, has been trained to liaise with the police. In our school it is our school Designated Safeguarding Leads. They will be able to use information that has been shared with them, in confidence, to ensure that the school is able to make provision for possible difficulties experienced by children or their families. The key adults will keep this information confidential, and will only share it on a need to know basis, for instance, to teaching staff for the child or young person. It will not be shared it with other school students.
Operation Encompass has been implemented across the whole of the Lancashire Police area. If you would like more information about it, you can view it online at operationencompass.org.
Prevent
The aim of the Prevent strategy is to reduce the threat to the UK from terrorism by stopping people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. In the Act this has simply been expressed as the need to “prevent people from being drawn into terrorism”.
The 2011 Prevent strategy has three specific strategic objectives:
- respond to the ideological challenge of terrorism and the threat we face from those who promote it
- prevent people from being drawn into terrorism and ensure that they are given appropriate advice and support
- work with sectors and institutions where there are risks of radicalisation that we need to address.
Further information on the Prevent strategy is available here.
If you have any questions regarding Operation Encompass, Prevent or any safeguarding matter, please speak to Mrs Procter or any of our DSLs (see above).