Understanding How Perceptions of Children Shape Perceptions of Risk and Needs in Relation to Safeguarding Concerns in Schools

All school staff need to have a critical self-understanding of how their perceptions of children, childhood and risk inform their practice when they are engaging with children and reflecting on factors linked to safeguarding. This chapter begins by discussing and briefly revisiting the duties and obligations that all staff have in relation to safeguarding children in educational settings. It then goes onto discuss the concept of teachers as ‘significant non parental adults’ (Rishel, Sales, & Koeske, 2005) and explores some of the finer details of why teachers and teaching staff are key players in relation to identifying risks, preventing harms whilst dealing with safeguarding concerns. We conclude this chapter by illustrating and arguing that teachers are key players identifying the needs of children and also have the potential to influence positive behaviour change in them. We also set a context for the remainder of this section: understanding the nature of concerns and risk by outlining the contribution each of the remaining individual chapters has to bring to this collection.