Incident Description

Two year 7 children were in an altercation within school, one of the children used threats of harm towards the other child. They threatened to have them ‘jumped’ by individuals from two gangs they named.

The child threatened disclosed to staff in school.

Staff appropriately discussed this concern with the student, who disclosed he was in contact with people from these gangs on snapchat and knew one of them from football.

He reported they made him feel ‘good’ when he was feeling bad.

Staff were concerned in regard to potential grooming and felt this child was ‘easily influenced’ and vulnerable to possible exploitation.

Guidance for Safeguarding Response

• School discussed concerns with parents and ensure they checked social media platforms accessed by their child/ren
• School signposted parents to ‘Internet Matters’ for parental controls to be put in place as they were not already
• School contacted Children’s Social Care and the police who advised the school to complete a Partner Information/Intelligence form with the information they had and the concerns regarding potential grooming and in relation to threats made
• School ensured parents were informed this was being carried out due to the duty of care for both students
• School contacted the parents of the boy who was threatened to ensure they were aware so they could safeguard him and shared the school’s safety plan to support for him

Additional actions which could be considered:

• Pol-ed sessions for the child and wider peer group from secondary resources such as ‘What is child criminal exploitation?’, ‘What do we mean by intimidation?’, ‘What is anti-social behaviour?

Agencies Involved in this Incident

Referrals to the police and children’s Social Care were made.

Internet Matters were used to support parents https://www.internetmatters.org/parental-controls/