Dear Parents/Carers

I wanted to contact you to reassure you of our commitment to your child’s safety whilst they are at Stone Soup Academy. This follows the recent tragic events in Wales when a student attacked students and staff. As you will be aware we take the security of our young people and staff very seriously and this is why, when any child enters the academy, they are screened to ensure that any items unsuitable for school do not enter the school. This is highlighted in our behaviour policy.

‘​​Ensuring school staff and students feel safe and secure is vital to establishing calm and supportive environments conducive to learning. Using searching, screening and confiscation powers appropriately is an important way to ensure student and staff welfare is protected and helps schools establish an environment where everyone is safe.

All students are screened on arrival to Stone Soup Academy as a means of minimising risks to students, staff and visitors. We screen our students using a hand held wand and search students by asking them to turn out their pockets.

I am conscious that we live in challenging times and moving forward I have put in place a lockdown procedure in the unlikely event of someone entering the academy with a view to hurt any of our school community.

A procedure such as this will be commonplace across all schools and colleges and over the coming terms we will practise this procedure with our young people in the same way that we practise what to do in the event of a fire.

Please be assured that we take the health and wellbeing of our young people seriously and I would ask that you also talk to your child about such an eventuality. In the unlikely event that such an event were to happen our approach would be:
Stay calm
Move to a classroom
Lock the door and remain quiet until the threat has passed.

It is important that when we do practise that they take this practise seriously and follow all instructions given by our staff.
Should you have any questions or concerns then please do not hesitate to contact me.

Kind regards,

Kerrie Henton
Principal