Has anyone used the Ofsted whistleblowing phoneline for safeguarding concerns?

[Yammer94]

Hello. Has anyone used the OFSTED whistle blowing phoneline? What happened?

We are considering whether to use it as we have had a catalogue of safeguarding concerns at our primary school, and now s couple of pretty horrific incidents. The school seems intent on brushing them away as one off incidents as a result of a couple of bad eggs rather than do any work to make their set up safer.

We haven't told other parents about the latest serious incidents and are trying to move our kids (which in itself is an uncertain and stressful process). But we feel really awful not telling other parents who are our friends and acquaintances in case anything is happening with their kids (hopefully not). The schools response makes us think they wouldn't know or even tell a parent if anything has happened.

We feel really guilty for not looking after our kids enough, partly as we took the schools reassurances about previous uncomfortable behaviour at face value, and we didn't want to appear to be pushy parents. :(

So what’s happened? Why aren’t you telling other parents? What ofsted would do is dependant on what happened and how greater risk it is. None of that is explicit in your post.

Ofsted will just send it to the education safeguarding lead and LADO in your local authority in the first instance anyway so you may be better placed contacting them first to discuss your concerns. If call your LA general customer service lines they will provide you with the contact email addresses.

Ofsted will just send it to the education safeguarding lead and LADO in your local authority in the first instance anyway so you may be better placed contacting them first to discuss your concerns. If call your LA general customer service lines they will provide you with the contact email addresses.

Not sure why that posted twice!

@hellotojason ah interesting. We have been in touch with LADO already to flag the issues and ask them to support the school in building an action plan. The school say the actions relate more to teens than to early primary given the severity of the issues. The school are going to "reflect" a bit more on things (its been 6 weeks already).

Thinking more on this we have nothing to lose from contacting OFSTED other than feeling like we are doing everything possible to keep kids safe. I guess I was hoping they would have the incidents on file at least to triangulate fir evidence for their next inspection.

Just report. If your wrong it’s awkward if it’s right you’ve potentially saved a child.
dont assume someone else will deal with it and be persistent. If it’s made in good faith, that is what the phone number is for

If you have serious safeguarding concerns, then report. Then you'll know you did what you could.