Safeguarding, student wellbeing and effective learning

Note: The author of this article, Anastasia Soola Georgiou, works for Veema Education, an organisation offering chargeable consultancy services to schools on a range of topics. Schools have a responsibility to safeguard and promote the welfare of children (Department for Education, 2016). Safeguarding involves protecting children from maltreatment, preventing the impairment of children’s health or development, ensuring that children grow up with the provision of safe and effective care, and working to enable children and young people to achieve the best outcomes. This is important for learning because children with higher levels of emotional, behavioural, social and school wellbeing, are, on average, more engaged in school and have higher levels of academic achievement (Morrison Gutman and Vorhaus, 2012). Addressing mental health problems can be a key component of safeguarding. Research shows that 50% of lifetime mental illness starts by the age of 14 (Hagell et al., 2013).