Mount St Joseph Catholic School Early Help Offer

We are here to help you!

Early Help is interventions that are offered to all our pupils to prevent problems developing, and it targets support to particular children and families with additional needs.

The purpose of Early Help is to support the well-being of children and families by tackling emerging needs at the earliest opportunity and prevent them from getting worse. This means working with you to identify any support you may need and gain access to additional services that can promote positive outcomes.

Effective Early Help may be delivered at any point in your child’s life about any issue which is impacting or could affect their development and well-being, including education and health.

Working Together to Safeguard Children 2018 (a guide to Inter-agency working) identifies that supporting children to achieve positive outcomes is more effective when local agencies work together to:

• Identify children and families who would benefit from Early Help.
• Undertake an assessment with you (known in Bolton as the Early Help Assessment)
• Provide Early Help services to address the assessed needs of a child and their family to improve outcomes.

We will ensure that we:

• Gain your consent and are open and honest.
• Seek your views and opinions.
• With your consent, work jointly with other professionals and services already working with your family.
• Empower you to gain positive outcomes.
• Allocate a lead person to help co-ordinate any support put in place.
• Consider the age and stage of your child’s development to make sure that actions are appropriate and inform our expectations and concerns.
• Keep you and your child involved and informed.

About Prevent

Prevent is about working together to safeguard those vulnerable to radicalisation.

Radicalisation can happen when a person develops extreme views or beliefs that support terrorist groups or activities.

Prevent is a national programme that aims to stop people from becoming radicalised into supporting terrorism or becoming terrorists. It works to ensure that people who are susceptible to radicalisation are offered appropriate interventions, and communities are protected against radicalising influences. Prevent is about supporting young people and offering guidance and support.

Radicalisation can happen when a person develops extreme views or beliefs that support terrorist groups or activities.

There are different types of terrorism, and Prevent deals with all of them.

Prevent is run locally by experts who understand the risks and issues in their area, and how best to support their communities. These experts include local authorities, the police, charities and community organisations.

Please see the file below for the latest up-to-date information about PREVENT.

Prevent Strategy 2024

Please see the file below for the latest up-to-date version of our Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy.

Safeguarding Policy 2024 – 2025.

At Mount St Joseph we ensure all our students are provided with support to deal with incidents of bullying and promote an environment which discourages this type of behaviour.  The school has adopted the following anti-bullying policy and routinely reviews this with students:

Anti Bullying Policy

Bolton Encompass

Our school is part of a project that runs in partnership with Bolton Safeguarding Children Partnership and Greater Manchester Police.

For further information click the links below:

Encompass Flow Chart

Encompass Bolton Protocol

Encompass Offer

At Mount St Joseph we have a dedicated team of pastoral staff who support students from transition in year 6 right through to year 11 when they are sitting their GCSE exams and applying to College, Sixth Form or onto an apprenticeship.

Each year group has a dedicated Pastoral Care Office (PCO), and each year the PCO moves up with the students enabling for the established relationships with parents, carers and students to continue.

The PCO’s role is to provide support and guidance to pupils by removing the barriers to learning, whether it be in school or at home, in order to promote effective participation, enhance individual learning, raise aspirations helping students to achieve their full potential.

The team is here to help and assist and support pupils and their families with a wide range of topics. They also have extensive knowledge of external agencies that can support with family and pupil issues.

Confidentiality is of course paramount and all issues are dealt with in the strictest of confidence.

Working closely with their Head of Year and the school’s attendance officer we are able to provide effective safeguarding, help, and support.

Mount St Joseph are also able to provide confidential on-site counselling service for our students.

Please see below a list of our pastoral team:

Deputy Headteacher and DSL – Mr. P Draper – pdraper@msj.stoccat.org.uk

Head of Pastoral and Deputy DSL – Mrs. D Burns – dburns@msj.stoccat.org.uk

Assistant Headteacher- Mrs M Smith- msmith@msj.stoccat.org.uk

Assistant Headteacher- Mrs G Morris – gmorris@msj.stoccat.org.uk

Attendance officer– (attendance@msj.stoccat.org.uk or ring 01204 391800 and press option 1)

SENDco– Mr Neild – dneild@msj.stoccat.org.uk

Year group Heads of Year:

Year 7: Mrs Forsythe – rforsythe@msj.stoccat.org.uk

Year 8: Miss Phoenix – kphoenix@msj.stoccat.org.uk

Year 9: Mr Drummond – pdrummondp@msj.stoccat.org.uk

Year 10: Miss Dale – fdale@msj.stoccat.org.uk

Year 11: Miss Snape – csnape@msj.stoccat.org.uk

All staff who join Mount St Joseph complete safeguarding training.

All Staff Training / Refreshers

• Safeguarding Inset (September) – All staff received face to face training with the DSL every September during inset days.  This includes updating staff regarding changes to our Safeguarding Policy which is revised and issued in September. All staff sign stating they have read, understood and comply with the policy in place.
• New KCSIE (Keeping Children Safe in Education) – All staff have received face to face training with the DSL in September 2024 and routinely during staff briefings to introduce the new changes put into place for KCSIE. All staff have signed a declaration stating they have read, understood and comply with the policy in place.
• New members of the team who join part way through the year receive online safeguarding training and receive a copy of the school safeguarding policy which they are required to confirm they have received and sign a declaration stating they have read, understood and comply with the policy in place.

Mental Health First Aid Training

We have a number of staff who are Mental Health First Aid trained. Mr Henshaw, Deputy Headteacher arranges this training in school.

If you are concerned about a child – Bolton MBC have published information to support those working with children at:

Worried about a child? – Bolton Safeguarding Children

At Mount St Joseph we ensure all our students are educated about the importance of online safety.  Below is our e-safety policy which is regularly reviewed:

E Safety Policy 2024