A specialist body of safeguarding officers should be set up within or separately from Ofsted because inspections are “too short” to cover the issue properly, a multi-academy (MAT) trust executive has said. Stephen Tierney, chief executive of the Blessed Edward Bamber Catholic MAT in Blackpool, said that safeguarding pupils was “too important” to be assessed as part of wider inspections every few years. Instead a special team of  “chartered safeguarding experts” should be visiting schools every term, with a follow-up the next term, “just so headteachers can sleep at night.” Speaking to delegates at the Headteachers Roundtable Summit in London today, Tierney said safeguarding should be treated as an auditing issue rather than an inspection issue. “We should establish chartered safeguarding officers who are outside of schools, who audit you every single term, and who come back and say it’s still not strong enough until you’ve got it right. Our kids are worth it.” Since forming as a trust, the Blessed Edward Bamber Catholic MAT had requested the local authority to carry out safeguarding audits “not for Ofsted, but so I can sleep”, said Tierney. It was impossible for Ofsted to do a thorough job of checking safeguarding issues in short…http://schoolsweek.co.uk/termly-safeguarding-audits-would-help-heads-sleep-at-night/