Bruise on my child's face.. Reported to Safeguarding

[senkaya]

My DS (aged 6) can be very boisterous and loves to wrestle and play fight at home. It's almost a daily thing that he enjoys doing with me.
Last night during in one of our play wrestling/play fighting things I was sitting in an armchair and he charged at me from other side of the room.. Banged his nose straight into my cand had nosebleed. I treated this and cleaned it up and nose looked fine afterwards.
However, when I looked at his face, there was a red mark on his cheek, possibly a friction mark of some kind from when he crashed into my leg. I had been sitting sideways with legs bent.
So, this morning the mark was still on his face. I mentioned it to the teacher when dropping him off at school. Explained about the nosebleed too. I knew exactly how the nosebleed happened but couldn't be sure exactly how the mark happened because he charged at me and crashed into me so quickly it was all a bit of a blur and my immediate concern at the time was for the nosebleed.
The headteacher phoned me a short while ago, saying that my DS had been spoken to at school and asked about how the mark got on his cheek. DS said he couldn't remember, only remembers the nosebleed happening.
As he couldn't remember specifically about the mark, the headteacher said he needs to complete a report and sent it to the local "Early Help and Safeguarding hub", somthing to do with social services I believe.
I asked him what I should expect in terms of next steps, he said the Safeguarding people look at the report and then contact the school with their findings/recommendations (rather than contact me directly).
I'm really scared that this whole thing could mushroom into some huge investigation or suspicision of abuse etc all because of my DS loving to play wrestle and play fight at home.
Anyone been in similar situations?

Sorry no real advice but that seems like a massive overreaction for a 'mark' especially if it is a one off occurrence...

I sent my 2 year old son to nursery with a black eye this morning where he fell in the garden Monday and joked social service were going to be on my back... now reading this i'm actually really worrying!!!

In the light of all the recent tragic stories of young children being abused, and killed, by their carers, I think it's just a reaction on the school's part.

They will already know that your child has caring, decent parents, but they are covering their backs.

How many times did we hear in the past, 'social services and the schools did nothing.

It's not personal and I wouldn't worry about it. (But I appreciate it's hard not to worry).

Easier said than done but I’d try to stay calm about this. If you know that your DS has never been intentionally hurt then it is highly likely that the assessment will reach this conclusion very quickly and that’ll be it.

DD has phases of falling over a lot (I think it’s when she grows). Sometimes she has multiple bruises to the extent I’m almost surprised that we haven’t been referred for safeguarding investigation.

Try not to worry about it - they have to be hyper vigilant. We got referred when I called to say DS wouldn't be coming in because he had COVID symptoms although he had tested negative on LF. They felt I should send him in based on the negative (he tested positive on PCR the same day so they dropped it).

I must say I wouldn't be encouraging the boisterous playfighting. They do enough of that without parents endorsing it.

When DS was 5, teacher wanted to have a word about the bruises on the back of his legs. There were indeed slightly dark marks - but they were from where his wellies rubbed. No bruises. They washed off. Teachers are raised on horror stories about abused kids. I found it hard to blame her but she could have tried wiping them first. Common sense!
PS. My mum was a teacher. There WAS a case of very bad abuse in one of her early years classes but there were no signs at all until the child in question took a friend home after school one day and her father murdered the child. It took my mum months to stop crying. She never blamed herself for not spotting some signs that just weren't there.

Sorry, meant to say never STOPPED blaming herself. My poor mum.

Try not to worry too much OP. If there are no other concerns that the school has, it will likely be dropped. If for any reason they do get involved its likely to be a quick visit and case closed (if your story is true and they don't pick up on any other flags).

I use to work in early help, it will vary from area to area but here's roughly what to expect.

Once early help have received the report they will check if you are known to them and if there has been any concerns before. They will notify school of any additional findings and will decide outcome depending on findings-
No further action
Welfare check- school to ring/visit
Welfare check early help to ring/visit
Welfare check - ss to ring/visit

To give you some clarity my dd told school her dad (exdh) had smacked her half sister. School reported it, Me and exdh got a welfare phone call from ss and our details were added to system at the end of the phone call we were told no further action.

School may or may not let you know result. Assuming there's no further concerns there's no reason they can't tell you. Early help and ss will tell you if your case is closing or not.

As a primary school teacher myself, I just want to say don't worry too much about it.

Schools have strict safeguarding policies that teachers need to follow. In a perfect scenario, it would go a little something like this:

When a teacher sees something that's 'not quite right', they ask the child's adult (you had already told them what happened at drop-off, so that's 'points' in your favour) and cross-reference that with what the child says. Unfortunately, when children are quite young, they can be hazy on details, which then might make a teacher suspicious. They forward their concerns to the designated safeguarding lead (DSL) in school, who then gets back in touch with the child's parent for clarification before taking any further action. It sounds like maybe your child's headteacher is the DSL. If the DSL is satisfied after that phone call, no action is taken. If they're unsure, they're legally obligated to inform services. Services should then get in touch with you to investigate before informing the school of their findings- ideally before the end of the school day (in case a child needs to be kept at school longer for their safety).
9 out of 10 times, the report filed by the school is found to be unnecessary and no further action is taken on anyone's part. But it's that 1 out of 10 where action does need to be taken that school staff and leaders need to be wary of.

The 'it could happen here' mindset is drilled into us over and over every school year. Your child's school is just trying to make sure he's safe. If there's nothing going on at home, please don't worry.