Safeguarding in the Curriculum

Our Commitment to Safeguarding: Empowering Every Child

While our staff are rigorously trained to identify and respond to concerns, we believe the most powerful tool for protection is education. We weave safeguarding themes throughout our curriculum—primarily through PSHE (Personal, Social, Health and Economic education), Computing, and specialised workshops—to ensure children gain the knowledge and vocabulary to recognise risks and seek help.

How We Teach Children to Stay Safe

We focus on building "Life Skills for Safety," ensuring children understand how to navigate the world both inside the school gates and in the wider community.

1. Inside School: A Culture of Trust

Children are taught from their first day that they have a right to feel safe.

• The "Hand of Five": Every child identifies five trusted adults (at school and home) they can talk to if they feel worried or "wobbly."

• Body Autonomy: Through age-appropriate lessons, we teach the "Pantosaurus" rule (Privates are Private), helping children understand boundaries and the right to say no.

• RSE - The essential aim of Relationship and Sex Education should be to provide pupils with the knowledge and skills to enable them to make informed and responsible choices now and in later life, emphasisng the benefits of a healthy lifestyle.  Our Relationship and Sex Education curriculum can be found here.

2. Outside School: Navigating the Real World

We prepare children for the independence they will face as they grow.

• Road and Community Safety: School assemblies on crossing roads safely, recognising "stranger danger" without inducing fear, and understanding what to do if they get lost or doing something new like walking to secondary school for the first time.

• Water and Fire Safety: Seasonal assemblies focus on specific risks, such as the dangers of open water in summer or firework safety in autumn.

3. In the Digital World: Online Safety

The internet is a brilliant resource, but it requires a "digital seatbelt."

• SMART Rules: We teach children to be Safe, Meeting-aware, Accepting-cautious, Reliable, and Tell-focused.

• The Four Cs of Online Safety: We teach children to manage digital risks and identify dangers such as inappropriate material, cyberbullying and financial exploitation.

• Digital Footprints: Older students explore the long-term impact of what they post and how to identify "phishing" or grooming behaviors,

Safeguarding opportunities are planned into the curriculum, for example:

• Termly safeguarding assemblies led by the lead DSLs
• SA@S Ambassadors supporting children inside of school and online
• Workshops and talks delivered by Kent police officers using the resoure Pol-Ed 
• Poolside and water safety through swimming lessons with the local leisure centre
• Fire awareness talks from workshops with the Kent Fire and Rescue Service
• Visits to school from medical staff, the NHS and NELFT
• Visitors from charities such as NSPCC
• Road and rail safety 
• Year 6 transition preparation work from primary to secondary school 
• Contextual safeguarding that focuses on risks outside of school in the community 
• National events such as Safer Internet Day, Anti-Bullying week and Children's Mental Health week       

Please see our safeguarding curriculum map to learn how we approach safeguarding across the curriculum.

Horizon-Safeguarding-in-the-Curriculum-2025-2026.pdf