Safeguarding and Wellbeing Officer

Location:        Bishop Wilkinson Catholic Education Trust and various school sites within the Trust across Gateshead, Sunderland, Durham and Hexham

Grade:             Grade J – SCP 31-34 (£41,771 – £45,091 per annum, pro rata)

Hours:             37 hours per week, Term Time Only + 15 days (41 weeks per year)

Are you passionate about making a meaningful difference in the lives of children and young people? Could you fulfil a vital role in our commitment to creating safe, supportive, and enabling environments across our schools. This is a rewarding opportunity to work collaboratively with dedicated professionals, champion best practices in safeguarding and pastoral support, and promote the wellbeing of every pupil in our care.

Our Trust comprises 47 first, primary, middle and secondary schools across Gateshead, Durham, Sunderland and Northumberland. Our schools support pupils to achieve well because of our highly skilled leaders and wider staff teams.

This is a new role working under the direction of the trust Director of Safeguarding and Student Support, adding capacity to our team to continue to ensure the highest standards of safeguarding and pastoral practice across the Trust.

You will work closely with school-based leaders and staff and colleagues in the central education team to ensure that children who are at risk are swiftly identified and receive timely, high quality, co-ordinated support that meets their needs to support them to be safe and to flourish. We encourage applications from professionals who are the forefront of research-informed safeguarding and pastoral practice.

The role would particularly suit an experienced safeguarding professional who is looking to further develop their skills and experience within the context of a multi-academy trust. You will be based at our central Trust building in Washington, which includes excellent training and meeting facilities. You will be required to travel schools across the Trust to support school-based leaders; therefore you must be able to meet the travel requirement for this post (travel allowance is payable).

Responsibilities:

• Assist the Director of Safeguarding and leaders across our schools with all matters relating to safeguarding and pastoral support.
• Assist the Director of Safeguarding and leaders across our schools in managing safeguarding and pastoral quality assurance process and procedures.

• Monitor and maintain the day-to-day overview of safeguarding and pastoral data and alert the Director of Safeguarding to any anomalies, significant patterns, or trends.
• Assist with the co-ordination of the Trust Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) network meetings and safeguarding updates.
• Ensure all staff and trustees complete annual safeguarding training, maintaining accurate and up-to-date records.
• Monitor and oversee the use of the Single Central Record/CPOMS, ensuring high quality safeguarding practice.
• Prepare safeguarding and pastoral data reports for directors.
• Assist the Director of Safeguarding with the review and update of policies and operational guidance.
• Assist the Director of Safeguarding with building effective collaborative partnerships with local authority services and other agencies.
• Any other responsibilities reasonably associated with the role.

You will have:

• Experience as a Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) or similar equivalent experience.
• Demonstrable experience of success within a role with responsibility for safeguarding children.
• Strong knowledge of legislation and statutory guidance relating to safeguarding and working with young people, responsibilities of schools and working with other agencies.
• Experience of building successful relationships with families and a wide range of stakeholders.
• Knowledge and experience of using attendance and safeguarding systems successfully, such as CPOMS.
• Experience of developing and/or delivering training to adults to support improved practice.
• High standards of professionalism, professional integrity, and ethics.
• Highly developed interpersonal and communication skills.
• Excellent administrative and IT skills and attention to detail.

For full details of the role, please see the job description and person specification.

We strongly encourage you to contact us for an informal discussion about the role. We invite you to email Paula Kearney pkearney@bwcet.com to arrange this.

For an application form and further details about this vacancy please visit our website  http://bwcet.com/vacancies/ where applications can be completed online.

Closing Date:            Noon, Thursday 23^rd October 2025

Interview Date:         Tuesday 4^th November 2025

The Bishop Wilkinson Catholic Education Trust is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. This post is exempt from the provisions of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act and is subject to an enhanced DBS check. An online search will be completed for all shortlisted candidates.