Policy Summaries
Policy Summaries
Below is a summary of the SchoolDocs policies and procedures. If you'd like to read the full version, there's a link that will take you directly to the complete policy on SchoolDocs. You can find the login details on the SchoolDocs page.
-
Ko Taku Reo takes its responsibilities for child protection seriously. We have a robust child protection policy and supporting documents to help guide us in all child protection issues.
They also make sure that when we make decisions about child protection, the child’s safety and welfare are at the centre of these decisions.
Our aim is to safeguard our students from abuse and neglect. We encourage concerns to be recognised and shared, and we use our Record of Concern process to ensure these are recorded.
What we do:
- Treat any concerns for a child's safety, wellbeing or possible abuse seriously
- Establish positive learning environments
- Promote respectful relationships
- Manage all child protection issues through a designated child protection person – this is our Executive Principal
- Work together to intervene early to support student safety and wellbeing
- Encourage a safe atmosphere for students to speak up
- Teach programmes about healthy and unhealthy relationships
- Follow Ko Taku Reo procedures for responding to student wellbeing or safety concerns
- Follow Ko Taku Reo procedures if there is a concern or disclosure about abuse or neglect
- Work with the student and whānau to understand safety or wellbeing concerns for the student.
Our staff:
- Are all safety checked and trained in our child protection responsibilities at our school
- Have training in abuse and neglect recognition and reporting
- Record concerns using our internal systems to document concerns or disclosures
- Follow our Code of Conduct to keep children safe and how to work in a safe way for the student
- Are Police vetted when their role includes unsupervised access to with students
- Have a professional responsibility to report any concerns about:
- safety or wellbeing of students,
- abuse or neglect, or
- professional misconduct of other staff
- Work with other agencies or people to best support students
- Seek guidance from other agencies where needed
- Do not act alone on concerns unless the child is in immediate danger.
If you have a concern about a child or a staff member working with a child, please contact us immediately. You can use our
Concerns and Complaints process to do this.You can also make a protected disclosure to the Executive Principal.
-
Ko Taku Reo is committed to providing an inclusive and safe environment for ākonga, ensuring barrier-free access to education and providing support systems for staff with health conditions. There are school staff who are trained in healthcare, and the school provides supplies and facilities. Clear processes for first aid and communication are in place, along with records of accidents, injuries, and illnesses. Ko Taku Reo also has policies for managing infectious diseases to protect the community.
-
The board has a responsibility to make sure that Ko Taku Reo is a physically and emotionally safe place. The board must do what is reasonably able to do to ensure the health and safety of workers, and to minimise health and safety risks. These requirements are reviewed regularly by the board. Health, safety and welfare is a shared responsibility with all who work at Ko Taku Reo.
-
We manage injuries and illness appropriately, including contacting emergency services if required and communicating with key people. Our recording and reporting lines apply to ākonga, staff and anyone else that has an accinde3nt or injury on one of our work sites. We have an accident and injury register, which also includes recording near misses when these are reported. All staff are responsible for recording accidents, injuries and illnesses they deal with. Any record is reviewed for level of risk, and changes made if required to prevent the accident or injury happening again in the future.
-
We are required to manage risk at all levels across our whole school to support the health, safety and wellbeing of ākonga, staff and community. We identify and report hazards, and eliminate or minimise known risks as far as we can reasonably do. We report on this regularly to the board. Risk is the chance that the hazard will cause harm, and how bad that harm would be. There are five different types of hazards identified with examples in the policy. We find out about any hazards by all staff reporting these on our Hazard Identification form, and these then go into a Hazard register.
-
Our health and safety management system is made up of many parts:
- Board provides funding to cover health and safety requirements
- We have a Health and Safety Committee to address health and safety issues and communicate between workers and the board
- We set goals for improving health and safety and systems, and plan how to address these each year
- We report to the board monthly around health and safety
- We undertake self-review by looking at our systems to ensure they are meeting health and safety needs and legislation
- Emergency Management Plans (EMP) for every site that are reviewed at least yearly
-
At Ko Taku Reo, we are committed to creating a safe online environment for our staff and community. When using social media in our professional or personal roles, we assume that all information published on social media may become public, regardless of privacy settings.
Professional use – we use approved social media platforms to perform our roles with the school community. These platforms are monitored and administered by Ko Taku Reo staff.
Personal use – Ko Taku Reo encourage staff to think about how they use social media in their personal life, and to always maintain professional boundaries. EG. Use personal social media after work hours, consider if it is appropriate being friends online with students, parents or others involved in the school, and consider your reactions to other social media posts which may be interpreted as reflecting the views of Ko Taku Reo, rather than a personal view.
-
All Ko Taku Reo workers are responsible for health and safety. We encourage engagement and participation in our health and safety practices. This is done by:
- The board engaging with health and safety issues
- Using the established health and safety committee to respond to concerns and review practices
- The health and safety committee makes sure that all workers have an opportunity to engage in improving work health and safety
- Having and recording health and safety as a standing agenda item on all staff meetings
- Tumuaki helping to resolve situations where a worker reasonably feels a task puts them at risk