In common with many schools, Coed-Y-Gof was recording safeguarding concerns using a paper-based system.

Several years ago, Coed-Y-Gof had implemented a process (a “red book” for every child), which was regarded as best practice at the time. Each red book was maintained by the class teacher with staff recording concerns and observations throughout the school year.

Some of the problems with this paper-based approach were that red books were occasionally mislaid; red books sometimes needed to be shared with other members of staff and were therefore not available when needed; or, books became very full for some children. Trying to find a specific entry in a full book wasted a lot of time.

Whilst writing in the red book was not an onerous task, it meant that the teacher or teaching assistant had to have access to the book at the time they wanted to record something. Sometimes this was not possible because the event happened away from the classroom or because the red book had been taken to another part of the school.

One Team Logic’s safeguarding solution, MyConcern, was the ideal solution to assist Coed-Y-Gof in recording and managing safeguarding concerns.

Head teacher, Mike Hayes, is keen to embrace new technologies and new ways of doing things in a constant drive to improve the learning environment and help all pupils achieve their best. After seeing MyConcern for the first time, he commented, “I immediately saw how this could save us a huge amount of time and improve communication between members of staff.”

MyConcern was installed at the school and linked up to SIMS, so that pupil data could be synchronised between the two systems. First, the senior leadership team was trained, and the context of how to best employ MyConcern to suit the school’s needs was discussed, before the rest of the staff were introduced to the new system.

MyConcern automatically builds a chronology against each pupil, so that trends and patterns can be spotted. Staff members can work together in a secure environment to manage complex and challenging cases using the in-built task management and messaging features.

• The Senior Leadership Team can look at the school as a whole, spot patterns early on and analyse what can be done to address the issues
• Multiple staff members can be involved in a case, raising the amount of input and improving welfare standards
• Saves time
• Recording a concern has become so much easier and takes less time than the previous method
• Teachers can get back to their core activity: teaching
• Valuable information does not get forgotten
• We are able to demonstrate within seconds that we are doing the right thing and have a robust processing place