Sithaar Harkhu

Skills

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About

Supporting Statement
With over 35 years’ of working in education, nearly 22 of which have been spent working in the UK as a teacher and manager in education, I have gained a breadth of experience in student and staff welfare, boarding management, and vast and varied experience as a Safeguarding practitioner. I consider myself well equipped to fulfill the prerequisites for the post advertised and this will be evidenced in the detailed statement below.

Safeguarding
For the past two years I have been working at Earlscliffe an independent school supporting and
managing the Safeguarding Duty of Care being the Designated Safeguarding Lead while ensuring the
pastoral provision and boarding is compliant.
Prior to that I was at CATS College London, where I was the Designated Safeguarding Lead managing all areas of Safeguarding to ensure that the college community was compliant with Safeguarding requirements. I worked closely with Camden Safeguarding Children Partnership to ensure that I had all the necessary training to fulfill my role at CATS making sure that all staff, students, parents, and guardians were fully appraised and conversant with statutory government safeguarding requirements.
This involved the following aspects of remit: -
● Updating college Safeguarding Policies
● Annual training update for staff
● Safeguarding induction for students
● Safeguarding induction for all new staff and students throughout the year
● Completion of the Annual Child Protection Report for the governors
● Managing and supporting Safeguarding disclosures
● Maintaining all Safeguarding records securely ensuring that the college was GDPR compliant
● Secured outside Safeguarding Level 3 training for the Senior Leadership Team
● Shared weekly Safeguarding updates from the NSPCC- ensuring that Safeguarding was in every
College weekly newsletter
● Ensured that all recruitment procedures followed Safeguarding compliance checks
● I worked closely with Camden Safeguarding Children Partnership being on the Online Safety
Committee where we organized an Online Safety Conference in Feb. 2017
● I worked closely with Camden Safeguarding Children Partnership to forge links between the state
and independent sector
● I secured the services and support of Jane Murphey – the Prevent Officer at Camden to
complete yearly ‘Prevent’ training at the college
● Preparing and actioning six monthly Safeguarding Audit (see boarding section)

Boarding/ Boarding Management
As part of my staff development at the Hammond School in Chester I completed a Certificate in Boarding Management awarded by Roehampton University. Since arriving in the UK I have had experience in both the state and independent sector: -
● Support of all areas of boarding care of students
● Overseeing boarding activities program
● Attended and supported boarding house meetings
● Organizing Induction of new students into boarding
● Organizing reflection days session for boarders to share their views
● Managing and leading boarding staff teams
● Chaired weekly Boarding Management Meetings
● Conducting annual appraisals
● Recruitment and vetting of boarding staff
● Preparing and delivering staff development training
● Arranging BSA staff development training courses
● Preparing and implementing 6 monthly boarding audits against the NMS standards in boarding
care
● Ensuring that fire safety compliance was in place
● Supported the marketing teams by showing prospective parents/ student and agents the
boarding facilities

Welfare
Being part of the boarding teams, student pastoral and welfare care has been paramount.
● I have always maintained close working relationships with school nurses and other ancillary staff
( sports and activities managers, PSHE enrichment programs and outside visiting speakers)
● Welfare support for Academic, Administration, Operations and Boarding staff
● Drew up Student Behaviour, Medical Care, and other relevant policies
● Chaired weekly Welfare meetings
● Made referrals to outside agencies for student welfare support
● Secured the storage and maintenance of student welfare records
● liaised with parents/ guardians on welfare issues
● Oversaw and approved school trips/ excursions
Over the many years in education my role has been supportive and measured for students, parents, and staff. I have tried to instill the philosophy of a co-operative, collaborative, and mutually beneficial
working environment as evidenced by the Regulatory and Compliance inspections reports by the ISI in 2016 and 2019 at CATS College London and most recently at Earlscliffe in June 2023.