Section 175 Audit
Section 175 of the Education Act 2002 requires governing bodies and senior leaders to carry out an annual review of the school's policies and procedures and to provide information to the Local Authority about how the duties set out in the guidance have been discharged.
Completion of the Section 175 audit tool provides educational establishments with clear evidence of the progress they have made in response to the safeguarding agenda and can provide focus on future safeguarding priorities whilst also maintaining an audit trail of the safeguarding quality assurance activity that they have undertaken.
The S175 audit is operated on a 2-year cycle in St Helens, with the first year seeing settings completing and returning an audit tool to the Safeguarding Children in Education Coordinator and the second year containing a series of front-line visits to schools. This comprehensive annual audit captures important qualitative and quantitative information on the status of safeguarding arrangements across educational settings.
The results assist with the identification of priorities, or areas for possible development across St Helens. This helps to identify what is working well for schools and to inform the Local Authority and wider safeguarding partners priorities should be.
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