Promoting safeguarding and welfare in the curriculum
12.1 Coventry Adult Education Service recognises the importance of teaching children how to stay safe and look after their mental health and are committed to equipping children with the skills and knowledge to have successful and happy lives.
12.2 Coventry Adult Education service will teach children and adults about safeguarding, including online safety via initial induction through the Services Be Safe Classroom flipcharts, and reinforcing contact details and support by the issuing of Be Safe – Learner Safeguarding cards
12.3 Schools and colleges play a crucial role in preventative education. Preventative education is most effective in the context of a whole-service or college approach that prepares pupils and students for life in modern Britain and creates a culture of zero tolerance for sexism, misogyny/misandry, homophobia, biphobia, and sexual violence/harassment. The service has a clear set of values and standards, upheld, and demonstrated throughout all aspects of training provider cultural life and setting high expectations for learners. These will be underpinned by the service’s learner code of conduct policy and employment, enrichment and pastoral programme delivered to each student on a weekly basis as part of the overarching study programme requirements.
Elements of relationship and sex education are taught to study programme learners through their Help and well-being sessions, and in conjunction with partners e.g., Grapevine. Topics are introduced at an appropriate stage and groups organised flexibly according to the needs of learners.
We ensure that pupils are offered a balanced programme by providing a programme of study that covers:
- Relationships, love, care, and the responsibilities of parenthood as well as sex
- Respecting yourself and others in relationships
- Taking on responsibility and the consequences of one’s actions in relation to sexual activity and parenthood
- Different types of contraception, safe sex and how they can access local sources of further advice, support, and treatment
- Having a clear understanding of the arguments for delaying sexual activity and resisting pressure
- Understanding the link between sex and relationship education with issues of peer pressure and other risk-taking behaviour, such as drugs, smoking and alcohol
- Understanding how the law applies to sexual relationships, with a focus on age of consent, sexting and child pornography
- Understanding on and offline safety, consent and sexual exploitation.
12.4 Children and young people enrolled within Coventry Adult Education Service will receive the following as part of our promotion of safeguarding across the curriculum:
All learners are introduced to Safeguarding as part of the Be Safe strategy adopted across the service, from induction via the in-class flip charts, learner Be Safe A7 cards with staying safe guidelines and emergency contact details to ensure their safety. On study programmes this information is revisited termly with individual learners, and in conjunction with the completion of their reviews.
12.5 Education at home and remote education
Where learners are unwell on Study Programmes and cannot attend Southfields, they are offered the option to dial in via Teams to that individual session, with learners required to take photographs of their work and send it back through tutor email accounts for marking and feedback. Where this appears to be longer than expected the study programme team would work with parents / guardians / foster carers / social workers / support workers, as applicable to re-engage as early as possible.