Child Safeguarding Commitment

The safeguarding of our students is a key priority of St Matthew’s.

Safeguarding is a term used to describe the protection of the human rights of vulnerable people. These people may be at risk of abuse, neglect, or exploitation due to their age, culture, or trauma background. Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is everyone’s responsibility. Anyone who comes into contact with children and their families has a role to play. 

Here is our Child Safeguarding Commitment: 

• St Matthew’s Primary School is committed to child safety. 
• We support and respect all children, as well as our staff and volunteers. 
• St Matthew’s is committed to making our children safe, happy, and empowered participants in our community. 
• We have zero tolerance for child abuse, and all allegations and safety concerns will be treated very seriously and consistently in accordance with our robust policies and procedures.
• St Matthew’s is committed to preventing child abuse, identifying risks early, and removing and reducing these risks. 
• We have legal and moral obligations to contact authorities when worried about a child’s safety.
• St Matthew’s has robust recruitment practices to reduce the risk of child abuse by new and existing School Community Council members, school staff and volunteers.
• We are committed to regularly training and educating our School Community Council members, staff and volunteers on child abuse risks. 
• St Matthew’s is committed to the cultural safety of Aboriginal children, the cultural safety of children from culturally and/or linguistically diverse backgrounds, and to providing a safe environment for children with a disability.
• We have specific policies and procedures in place to support our School Community Council members, staff, and volunteers in achieving these commitments. 

  

Protective Behaviours

This term, students have been learning about Protective Behaviours. Protective Behaviours are a way of looking at personal safety to develop life skills to recognise safe and unsafe situations. They are the things we say and do to keep ourselves safe. The two key themes we teach our students are: 

Everyone has the right to feel safe all the time.

We can talk with someone we trust about anything. 

Everyone has the right to feel safe from all types of abuse, including bullying and violence, both in person and online. We encourage our students to develop and identify a network of safe and trusted ‘go-to’ people. These are the people our children can go to if they have a problem. Asking for help from this network is about taking steps to ensure our children are listened to, and someone can take action to keep them safer.

For more information, you might like to read this document, published by the ACT Government, Protecting Your Kids: Personal Safety Education for Parents.

If you would like to know more about Child Safeguarding, please email petra.cole@cg.catholic.edu.au.