Safeguarding Policy

1. Introduction and Policy Statement

AweSTEM Limited ("AweSTEM", "we", "us", "our") provides STEM education services — coding, robotics and game design holiday camps, term-time courses, and after-school clubs delivered at partner schools — for children aged 5–14 in Surrey and the surrounding areas.

The welfare of every child in our care is our first priority. This policy sets out how we safeguard and promote the welfare of children who attend our camps, courses and clubs, how our staff are expected to behave, and what we do if we are concerned that a child may be at risk of harm.

This policy applies alongside our separate Privacy Policy, which covers how we handle personal data more generally. Where safeguarding requires us to record, share or retain information about a child, Section 17 below explains how that sits alongside our data protection obligations.

2. Who This Policy Applies To

This policy applies to everyone acting on AweSTEM's behalf, including:

• Employees, instructors and camp leaders
• Freelance tutors, coaches and casual/temporary staff
• Directors and anyone else undertaking activities on our behalf

It covers all children attending an AweSTEM holiday camp, term-time course or school club, whether booked directly by a parent/guardian or arranged through a partner school.

3. Legal Framework

This policy is written with reference to, and operates within:

• The Children Act 1989 and Children Act 2004
• Working Together to Safeguard Children (HM Government, statutory guidance)
• Keeping Children Safe in Education (Department for Education, statutory guidance)
• The Childcare Act 2006
• The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006
• The Equality Act 2010
• UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018

Where we operate on a partner school's site, we also follow that school's own safeguarding policy and procedures for anything specific to that site, in addition to this policy.

4. Our Safeguarding Principles

• The welfare of the child is, and always will be, our paramount concern
• Every child, regardless of age, gender, ability, culture, race, language, religion or sexual identity, has an equal right to protection from harm
• All staff have an equal responsibility to act on any concern about a child's welfare
• We work in partnership with parents, carers, schools and relevant agencies to promote children's welfare
• Children have the right to be listened to, believed and taken seriously

5. Recruitment and Staff Vetting

We follow safer recruitment practice for everyone working with children on our behalf:

• DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) check, including a check against the children's barred list, before any unsupervised contact with children
• Verification of identity and right to work
• An induction covering this policy, our code of conduct, and how to raise a concern, completed before a new starter leads a session unsupervised

Freelance tutors and partner-school staff who work alongside us are required to hold their own valid DBS check, which we verify before they are placed with a group of children.

6. Staff Code of Conduct

Everyone working with children on AweSTEM's behalf is expected to:

• Treat all children with respect, dignity and fairness, and never favour or single out a child
• Never be alone with a single child in a closed or private space; keep interactions visible and, where possible, in view of another adult
• Use only appropriate, professional language and behaviour, both in person and online
• Never contact a child or their social media directly outside of official AweSTEM channels
• Challenge and report any behaviour by a colleague that falls short of this code, however small it may seem
• Never promise a child confidentiality — see Section 8

7. Recognising Abuse and Neglect

Staff are trained to recognise the four categories of abuse defined in statutory guidance, and to be alert to signs a child may be experiencing them:

• Physical abuse — unexplained injuries, bruising, or a child flinching from contact
• Emotional abuse — persistent low self-esteem, extreme anxiety, or age-inappropriate behaviour
• Sexual abuse — inappropriate sexual knowledge or behaviour for the child's age, or physical signs
• Neglect — poor hygiene, hunger, inadequate clothing, or untreated medical needs

8. Responding to a Disclosure

If a child discloses that they are being harmed, staff are trained to:

• Listen carefully and calmly, without interrupting or asking leading questions
• Reassure the child they were right to speak up, without promising to keep it secret
• Explain that the information must be passed on to someone who can help
• Not investigate or question the child beyond what they offer voluntarily
• Record what was said, in the child's own words, as soon as possible afterwards
• Report immediately to a senior member of staff on duty — see Section 9

9. Reporting a Concern

9.1 Internal Procedure

Any member of staff who has a concern about a child's welfare — whether from a disclosure, an observation, or something a parent or another child has said — must report it to a senior member of staff on duty on the same day, using our internal concern record. A concern is never dismissed or left until the next session.

9.2 External Referral

Where a child is believed to be at risk of significant harm, AweSTEM will refer the concern to the relevant local authority children's services and, where there is immediate danger, to the police, without delay and regardless of parental consent.

10. Online Safety and Use of Technology

Many of our courses involve computers, tablets and internet access as part of learning to code, build robots and design games. We manage this by:

• Using age-appropriate platforms and, where available, supervised or filtered internet access
• Never allowing a child to use a personal device to contact a member of staff, or vice versa
• Supervising all internet use during sessions and not leaving children unsupervised with an internet-connected device
• Teaching children age-appropriate online safety as part of our curriculum where relevant
• Reporting any concern about a child's online safety, whether it occurred during a session or was disclosed to us, in line with Section 9

11. Photography and Filming

Photographs and video are only taken by AweSTEM staff, and only where a parent or guardian has given consent at the time of booking. Photographs and video are never used for any purpose outside AweSTEM.

• Children whose parent/guardian has not given photo/video consent are never included in identifiable marketing images
• Images taken for internal register or safeguarding purposes are never used for marketing and are stored securely, accessible only to authorised staff
• Children are never photographed or filmed in a state of undress or in a way that could be misused

12. Anti-Bullying

We do not tolerate bullying of any kind — physical, verbal, online, or exclusion-based — between children, or by any adult towards a child. Staff are trained to intervene early, address the behaviour with all children involved, and inform parents/guardians where appropriate. Persistent or serious bullying is treated as a safeguarding concern and handled under Section 9.

13. Health, Safety and Medical Care

• Our staff are first-aid aware
• Medical conditions, allergies and additional needs declared at booking are shared with the staff supervising that child, and kept on hand during the session
• Any accident, injury or administration of first aid is logged and, where appropriate, a parent/guardian is informed the same day
• Staff-to-child ratios are set appropriate to the children's age and the activity, and reviewed for higher-risk activities such as robotics build sessions
• A child is only released at pick-up to a parent, guardian, or named person authorised at booking

14. Missing Child Procedure

If a child cannot be accounted for during a session, staff will:

• Immediately alert the session lead and begin a search of the immediate area and building/site
• Check registers to confirm who was last with the child and when they were last seen
• Notify the venue (school or camp site) and, if the child is not found within a few minutes, contact the parent/guardian and, if necessary, the police
• Record the incident in full once the child is found or the appropriate authorities have been engaged

15. Physical Contact and Reasonable Force

Staff avoid unnecessary physical contact with children. Reasonable, minimal physical contact may be used to support a child (e.g. guiding a young child by the hand, comforting a distressed child, or assisting with a practical build task), always in view of others and appropriate to the child's age.

Physical intervention to restrain a child is used only where necessary to prevent immediate injury to that child or others, is limited to the minimum force required, and is always reported to AweSTEM's management team and the child's parent/guardian the same day.

16. Working With Parents and Carers

We ask parents and guardians to share any information relevant to their child's welfare, medical needs or behaviour at the time of booking, and to update us if circumstances change. We will always inform a parent/guardian of any incident involving their child on the same day, except where doing so would itself place the child at risk — in which case we follow the external referral process in Section 9 instead.

17. Confidentiality, Records and Data Protection

Safeguarding concerns, disclosures and related records are kept confidential and shared only with those who need to know, and, where a referral is made, the relevant external agency. Information is never shared more widely than necessary to keep a child safe.

AweSTEM Limited is registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) as a data controller under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. Our registration can be verified on the ICO's public register at ico.org.uk/ESDWebPages/Search.

How we collect, use, share and retain personal data more generally — including children's data, medical/SEN information, and photography — is set out in full in our Privacy Policy. This safeguarding policy governs how we act when a child's welfare is at risk; the Privacy Policy governs how we handle personal data lawfully and securely. The two work together but cover different obligations, and neither replaces the other.

18. Whistleblowing

Any member of staff who has a concern about the conduct of a colleague can raise it directly with AweSTEM's management team at info@awestem.co.uk, without fear of reprisal. Concerns about a colleague's conduct towards a child are treated as a safeguarding matter under Section 9, not an internal HR matter, and are reported externally where the threshold is met.

19. Training

All staff complete safeguarding induction training before working unsupervised with children, covering this policy, how to recognise abuse, and how to report a concern. AweSTEM's management team completes safeguarding training appropriate to their oversight role, refreshed periodically in line with statutory guidance.

20. Complaints

If you have a safeguarding concern about AweSTEM, or are unhappy with how a concern was handled, please contact us directly so we can investigate.

21. Review of This Policy

This policy is reviewed at least annually, and sooner if there is a change in relevant legislation, statutory guidance, or following any safeguarding incident. The latest version will always be available on our website.