St. Paul Orphanage School

VISITORS 
The school seeks to provide an open and friendly learning environment, which values and encourages visitors to the school. At the same time school management recognizes our duty of care to ensure a safe environment for our students and staff and we recognize our responsibility to protect and preserve our resources against theft, vandalism and misuse.

This policy provides guidelines for visitors to St. Paul Orphanage School and to provide a safe and secure environment for our students, staff and resources.

Definitions:
Visitors  to the school are defined as all people other than staff members, students, volunteers (see volunteers policy) and registered parents/ guardians involved in the task of delivering or collecting children at the start or the end of the school day.

Visitors to the school grounds are defined as those people who are not involved with the school as staff members, students and volunteers.

The following guiding principles apply to visitors during school operation hours each school day.
Guiding principles

All visitors are required to report to the administration office prior to undertaking activity within the school. They will be required to sign a visitor’s book and will be assigned a visitors badge which they must wear at all times within the school. Similarly, visitors will be required to report to the administration office at the end of their visit to return their badge and sign out in the visitor’s book.

Visitors will be provided with directions where appropriate and will be made aware of any construction works etc that may impact on their safety or comfort.

The above mentioned process forms an aging and monitoring visitors will be published in school communications and will appear at all school entrances. Visitors to the school will to required to report their visit intentions at the point of entry into the school premises and will then be given an identification badge that must be worn visibly at all times and returned as the visitor exits the school premises. Visitors not cooperating will be denied entry.
Visitors within the school who have failed to follow this process will be directed to the administration offices. All visitors will report to the school reception desk or administration offices where they will be welcomed and asked for their details and for the name of the person they need to see.

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Parent visitors should have particular and known visiting time especially if it’s outside the planned parents meeting for example during the break hours to avoid interruption of class room learning activities and allow interaction with the teachers.

The head teacher assisted by the site manager will be responsible for workmen/women and trades people, during their time in school. They must show proof of identity to the site supervisor if they are not already known to him/her. He/she will alert senior staff of their presence.

The head teacher or in her absence the deputy head must be informed immediately if members of the police, fire service, local authority, district, or other official bodies, arrive at school unexpectedly.

Any member of staff must challenge any stranger they meet who is not wearing identification or who is acting suspiciously.

If any visitor behaves in an unacceptable or threatening manner, they will be required to leave the premises immediately. In this situation, they should be immediately removed from any situations where there is a possibility of them harming the children or staff. If necessary the police should be summoned to remove them.
The safety of our children and staff is paramount. This policy has been put in place to ensure that visitors to the school are carefully welcomed, checked, supervised and monitored during their time at school. It will ensure that no unauthorized person has entry to the school.

The major objectives of this policy include prevention of unauthorized persons from entering school, make visitors welcome, ensuring that visitors are monitored and checked at the entry point and monitored carefully during their time in school to be able to account for, and locate, visitors at all times. This policy will promote the excellent ethos of the school.