University of Birmingham School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all our pupils, students, and staff. We have 10 trained Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSLs) available to support our pupils, students, families, and staff. We also have a School counsellor, and a significant number of pastoral staff to offer emotional and mental health support for all year groups.

We work closely with Birmingham Children’s Services and the Police, and we actively support the Government’s Prevent agenda to counter radicalisation and extremism. We work with a range of agencies as part of Operation Encompass. Further to this, we work with a range of support services and provide in-house support as well as signposting to external services for pupils, students, and families.

University of Birmingham School is committed to keeping our pupils and students safe, both in School and the wider community. As part of our safeguarding arrangements, we have a two-way information sharing agreement in place with West Midlands Police, and we are also active members of our local constituency Police & Schools Panel.

The agreement is compliant with Crime & Disorder Act 1998, Data Protection Act 2018 – 2021 Update and United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation (UK-GDPR); and focuses on preventing young people from becoming involved, or further involved, in crime and anti-social behaviour (as either a victim or offender) or those who have been reported as missing that may be vulnerable as a result.

This joint approach helps us to intervene early; provide additional support, and share up-to-date safety messages with pupils, students, and their parents/carers.

We have a number of policies and procedures in place that contribute to our safeguarding commitment and our whole-school safeguarding culture.

Safeguarding is defined as:

• Protecting children from maltreatment;
• Preventing impairment of children’s health or development;
• Ensuring that children are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care; and
• Taking action to enable all children to have the best life chances.