Safeguarding

The health, safety and wellbeing of our students is of paramount importance to all of us at Grey Court, and underpins everything we do. We have a well established team-approach to safeguarding, which is seen as a whole school responsibility, and encompasses all staff, governors, volunteers, visitors and contractors. You may access our safeguarding and child protection policy via the school policies page.

The additional tabs on this page provide a host of information on specific safeguarding issues, which you may find useful. Emergency contact details are provided below.

Reporting concerns

If you have a concern about the safety of a child please contact the school or the relevant local authority Children's Services. Contact details for Grey Court and for Richmond and Kingston are provided below:

Grey Court

The designated safeguarding lead (DSL) is: Ms V Price, vprice@greycourt.org.uk. 
The deputy designated safeguarding lead is: Ms S Mercer, smercer@greycourt.org.uk. 
The nominated governors for safeguarding are : Mr J Knott, jknott@greycourt.org.uk and Ms E Rowley, Erowley@greycourt.org.uk.

Any safeguarding concerns should be reported to Ms V Price or Ms S Mercer, immediately.

Outside school hours 

Outside school hours you should contact:
Richmond and Kingston Children’s Services  Single Point of Access team 020 8547 5008 / 020 8770 5000. 

CEOP (Child exploitation and online protection)

CEOP exists to keep children safe from sexual abuse and grooming online. If you, or someone you know, has experienced online sexual abuse, or you are worried that it is happening, you can report this safely and securely through the CEOP link button at the bottom of each page of this website.

Whole school approach

The starting point of our safeguarding policy is that every adult in the school is responsible for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of our students. All staff undergo annual training and refresher courses to familiarise themselves with their safeguarding responsibilities and with the policy and procedures dealing with safeguarding. We have a comprehensive system of support in place for our students, which includes tutors, student support officers, phase leaders, a family support worker and school counsellors. The aim is to identify any student at risk of harm as early as possible and to protect that student from harm.

We are guided by, and fully compliant with, the government document Keeping Children Safe in     Education 2024 and its definitions of harm (neglect, exploitation, and physical, emotional and sexual abuse) and of safeguarding issues which include: 

• online safety 
• mental health 
• child criminal exploitation 
• radicalisation 
• substance abuse 
• peer to peer abuse 
• domestic abuse 
• honour based abuse.

Safer recruitment

We are fully compliant with the requirements of Keeping Children Safe in Education 2024 with regard to safer recruitment practices. We have robust recruitment procedures in place, to ensure unsuitable individuals do not work, or volunteer, with our students. Visitors to the school site are closely supervised to protect against any harm to our students.

Contact

Ms V Price Designated Safeguarding Lead, vprice@greycourt.org.uk.

Ms S Mercer Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead, smercer@greycourt.org.uk.