Child Protection Training for all

The issue of Child Protection is a very significant one for any school.  All children must be kept safe in an environment that respects them and nurtures their abilities and personalities.

To that end, and as part of our on-going commitment to all the students, we arranged for Tim Gerrish OBE to conduct training sessions on Thursday 20th August and Friday 21st August for all our non-teaching staff, all of them Vietnamese.

Tim is very experienced in this area.  For many years a police man in the UK he has been working closely with CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre) delivering courses around the world, including Vietnam.  We previously hosted a conference here at BVIS in February 2014 for Vietnamese teachers, NGOs and government officials.  CEOPS was later taken under the wing of the National Crime Agency of the British Government.  Tim now works independently to deliver training around the world through his company, ICPA http://www.icpa.co.uk/.

This group included all of the staff currently employed by BVIS: guards, cleaners, maintenance, administrative staff, as well as those groups subcontracted to work here in the school.  These included all of the bus monitors and the Donkey Bakery catering team.  We saw their hearing impairment as no obstacle to delivering quality training and they received the training through a ‘signer’ translating from them to understand the key points.  Vietnamese teachers and TAs also received quality training to help them understand the key issues of Child Protection.

It was an extremely important and educational day for all and I am very grateful to Tim Gerrish for his expertise and warmth in helping our staff understand better this essential message.

In October this year, all of the expat teachers will be undertaking online Child Protection training through the Nord Anglia Education training scheme and will receive regular updates and refresher courses.