Understanding Safeguarding for Children and their Educational Experiences

Many of the problem’s children face in relation to their personal lives, educational experiences and attainment are caused by factors that exist outside schools. Yet despite this, all educational establishments and all school staff now have a clear ‘duty’ and ‘responsibility’ to respond to safeguarding and vulnerability concerns. All school staff are expected to be particularly alert to specific risks and the needs of children in particular groups or sets of circumstances children face in their daily living experiences. In policy documents and academic texts on safeguarding and vulnerability it is relatively easy to identify and define individuals, groups and sub-groups who are deemed to be more at risk. A key gap in the existing literature is that no consideration is given to explain and understand why children and young people find themselves in these positions of risk or vulnerability in the first place. 

This book fills this gap in the literature, building on current government publications, and collectively supports and compliments the endeavours of schools, universities, trainee teachers/ECTs and school support staff in relation to understanding and meeting the needs of pupils who may be at risk. This is achieved by bringing together subject area experts and academics (teaching and non-teaching) from a range of subject areas to explore three main areas: understanding the concepts of vulnerability, enhancing pupil engagement and teaching practices, and social problems, risk and resilience. This timely and accessible work will be vital reading for academic and professional teaching staff, trainee teachers and ECTs

Dr William McGovern is a Senior Lecturer, Childhood Studies and the Early Years at Northumbria University, UK. Prior to joining Northumbria University, William McGovern worked as a professionally qualified Youth and Community worker, with children and adults in the fields of substance use and mental health, as a manager in children’s’ services and as PPI lead in the NHS: Public Health Commissioning and Reform. He currently leads teaching on modules which include: the voice of the child, substance use, research and leadership in children’s services. 

Dr Aidan Gillespie is a Senior Lecturer in Education (Religious Education lead) at Northumbria University, UK. Aidan came to Initial Teacher Education having had a successful career as a primary school teacher, teaching in Lincoln, Italy, London and Kent. Now as Initial Teacher Education subject lead for Religious Education at Northumbria University, Aidan designs and teaches modules focussed on the role of religion in state education in the UK and the way in which religion, society and values intersect. With a research focus on spirituality, Aidan is deeply interested in the intersection between spirituality and professional identity.

Dr Helen Woodley is a Senior Lecturer in Children and Young People’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapies at Northumbria University, UK. Previously, Helen worked as a teacher in both specialist and alternative provision settings. Her final teaching role was as a KS1 – 4 Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCo) in a large alternative provision setting. Here she worked with children and young people who were at risk of, or who had been, permanently excluded from mainstream education.