What happens after a safegaurding concern is raised?

[Pippapotomus]

I witnessed something really terrible at school drop off this morning. I emailed the office to let them know as I would feel awful not saying anything. It was in front of most the class and parents so I hope others have spoken up too.

What usually happens? I know I won't find out, but do schools usually investigate these things quite quickly? I feel so sorry for the boy involved and hope someone has asked if he's OK.

The school should have a safeguarding/child protection policy on their website that should explain exactly what they will do in the event of a concern being raised or them encountering an incident of a child being at risk of harm.

But in general, if a school is made aware of a child being placed at risk or some sort of incident occurs that would be a safeguarding concern, they would need to pass that information to children's services pretty much immediately. It would be for social workers/the police to assess the information and decide what needs to be done - do they need to investigate, do they need to take action straight away to prevent the child being at risk of further harm, etc.

I once had to raise a safeguarding concern with a primary school about one of their children. I didn't have any direct connection to the school or child, but couldn't ignore what I'd seen or what the child had told me.

I never heard anything back (I did phone the school to check they'd received my email), and I'll never know what happened to the child (quite right too - it's none of my business). I hope he's ok.

However, from working with young people I know that safeguarding is given a very high priority. The school is probably working like a swan for the child - serene and relaxed as far as you can see, but working very hard beneath the surface.

I would guess the school are very aware of this child
They will do referral to s.s
You won’t hear anything as it will be strictly confidential
Well done for doing it, it’s the little things that save kids lives

The school will have their Safeguardihg Policy on its web site. Its mandatory. You need to read that. They have a Safeguarding Officer and they have duties and contacts to whom they report incidents and concerns. It will make it clear what they have to do. The school does not invetigate itself. Do make sure you undertstand what safeguarding actually is: it will be defined in the document. It is not necessarily poor parenting.

You could also do a referral to SS yourself, or via NSPCC. You can do this anonymously.

Well done for reporting, I hope you’re ok.

They will refer it, probably to the local MASH (you can also do this online just for future reference, although hopefully you won’t need to).

It will be reviewed by an assessment worker and picked up if it meets the threshold. If there is an immediate concern for the child the police may also become involved. I would imagine if something awful happened in full view of other people, it’s likely to be worse behind closed doors and the child may already be known to SS or at the very least concerns might have already been raised.