Support for Students and families


​Supporting our students and their families is extremely important to us.  As stated in 'Keeping Children Safe in Education' — the Department for Education's statutory guidance for schools — 'It is essential that everybody working in a school or college understands their safeguarding responsibilities'.  To this end, all our staff receive training in safeguarding children and child protection, and several — our safeguarding team -- are trained to Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) level. ​

The Trust and the school are committed to engaging with families through robust partnership working. We therefore urge any family that needs support to consider the benefits of Early Help    Early Help - Devon Children and Families Partnership (dcfp.org.uk)
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Keeping our Students Safe in the College

Our students can talk to any member of staff about any problems, but may wish in the first instance to speak with:

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Keeping our Students Safe outside the College

If a child is in immediate danger, do not delay or hesitate and call the Police on 999.  If you have an urgent safeguarding concern call the Devon MASH (Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub) on 0345 155 1071 or 0345 600 0888 out of hours).  The following contacts for additional support may also be of help:
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Reporting any concerns

Parents may contact us using the details provided in the 'Contact Us' section of this website.  Our students may speak directly with a member of staff (Tutor, Head of Year, or member of our Safeguarding team), or contact us via the 'Need to Talk' email address (our safeguarding team will monitor and triage any communications received via this route to ensure appropriate support is provided).  We also consider discrimination as defined by the Equality Act 2010  to be a safeguarding concern and encourage any student who is experiencing any form of discrimation to report such to us (please see the 'Reporting Discrimination' section of the 'Equality & Diversity' page of our website). 

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Tor Support Services (Charity No 1163407)

Tor Support is an independent charity relying on grant funding and donations, who provide free and confidential counselling to children and young people aged 5 – 25 years.  This is available to any young person who lives in the Okehampton area plus the surrounding parishes, regardless of which school they attend.  Their counselling rooms are based in our school and their aims are to ‘alleviate emotional and psychological distress through professional counselling; improve quality of life, self-esteem, happiness and relationships; and help improve life chances and foster more positive adult lives’.   Anyone can make a referral including the young person themselves.  To make a referral please use this LINK.  For further information please visit www.torsupport.org.uk or email office@torsupportservices.org.uk
 
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Sources of Additional Support and Information

​​In addtion to the advice we share here on the Safeguarding pages of our website regarding specific safeguarding issues and concerns, the following resources may be useful:
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