The Importance of Safeguarding Children in Extracurricular Activities
When we talk about safeguarding, the emphasis is often upon safeguarding children while they’re in school. But the classroom isn’t the only environment where it’s essential to ensure that children are safeguarded.
Summertime: a time for extracurricular activities
Although they’re popular year-round, with the summer now well underway, the amount of time that children in the UK spend in extracurricular activities is peaking. Schools in the UK are now offering more extra-curricular activities than ever before, which is helping to get children outside and encouraging them to be more active. Over £450 million has been spent on the DFE and Sports Premium funding course between 2013 and 2016, enabling many schools to invest in expanding and improving their range of extracurricular activities - in particular, sports activities.
Now that schools have let out for summer, you’ll be wanting to make sure that your children make the most of all of those extra hours of freedom. In addition to encouraging physical and intellectual activity, getting involved with extracurricular activities has been linked to increasing happiness and decreasing stress among children.
Different kinds of activities, different safeguarding concerns
But, first and foremost, you’re going to want to ensure that your children are going to be safe while getting involved in their extracurricular activities.
For every kind of activity, there’s going to be a different range of safeguarding concerns. But there are some overarching fundamental safeguarding principles that always need to be considered.
At its core, safeguarding is about protecting people’s wellbeing, health, and human rights. When it comes to extracurricular activities, there are certain parts of this process that need to be taken into particular consideration. This is partially because the majority of extra-curricular activities exist outside the framework of a school. This means that often the individuals running extra-curricular activities won’t have previously undergone safeguarding training. But if you’re in a position when you’re running activities for, or working with, children or young people, you should ensure that you’ve undergone safeguarding training so that you can ensure the wellbeing and safety of the young people in your care.
In our modern world, it’s especially important that all individuals who work with children and young people regularly undergo safeguarding training in order to ensure that they have a firm understanding of the role that online safety plays in keeping children safe.
Technology is now such an ever-present part of our lives that it’s a fundamental part of safeguarding children no matter what particular activities you’re running.
Improving communication
A big part of safeguarding children is improving the ability of staff and facilitators that work with children to communicate well with those who are in your care. Improved communication ability allows you to have conversations about issues that they might be having, or important ways for them to stay safe during the summer holidays.
This emphasis on communications works two ways. By empowering staff to communicate effectively with children, you’re also teaching children the importance of speaking up about their feelings and concerns – which is a lesson that they’ll carry with them throughout their lives.
Want to learn more about safeguarding training, or invest in one? We’ve got you covered!
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