What Does the Guidance Say About External Visitors?

So what does the guidance say about working with external visitors? As external visitors we are very interested in this one ourselves. So, let’s get into it.

If you have had a Loudmouth session before, or worked with other visiting professionals, you may already know that working with external organisations can help enhance the delivery of subjects, bringing in specialist knowledge and different ways of engaging with young people.

But which visitors should we use?

With any external visitor, schools are responsible for ensuring that they check the visitor or visiting organisation’s credentials. This may include DBS information.

You should also ensure that the teaching delivered by the visitor fits with your planned programme and your published policy. It is important that you discuss the details of how the external visitor will deliver their sessions and confirm that the content is age-appropriate and accessible for the pupils.

How can we do that?

As some of you may already be doing, you should ask to see the materials that visitors will use in advance. This helps you to guarantee the session meets the full range of your pupils’ needs (e.g. special educational needs). Doing this preliminary questioning means that everyone should have a great time on the day of the visit.

Further to this it is important to agree how confidentiality will work in any lesson and that the external visitor understands how safeguarding reports should be dealt with in line with school policy.

And always remember that the visitors should be there to enhance teaching by an appropriate member of the teaching staff, rather than as a replacement for teaching by those staff.

So, what is Loudmouth doing?

In 2019, Loudmouth proudly celebrated our 25th anniversary. Yay!

Currently we are running 8 different prevention and awareness programmes that can be delivered in primary schools, secondary schools, colleges and non-mainstream venues, to help children and young people build their knowledge, skills, attitudes and resilience. The content of these programmes explore issues such as:

• Child Exploitation
• Child Sexual Exploitation & Abuse
• County Lines
• Knife Crime
• Domestic Abuse
• Bullying
• Drugs and Alcohol (which now includes content that covers 'Legal Highs')
• Mental Wellbeing
• Peer on Peer abuse
• Sexual Health and Consent
• Puberty and Transitions

All our programmes contain a performance and workshop element and can be delivered as class sized sessions, drop down days or assembly-style presentations for whole year groups. They are also accompanied by a comprehensive set of free online lesson plans, which teaching staff often use to enhance their RSE provision.

We also work regularly to support teachers and health care professionals through a variety of training programmes.

Anything else?

Hopefully we have managed to help clarify what the guidance says about working with external visitors, but the support doesn’t end there!

Here are two Loudmouth blog posts that will hopefully help with your understanding of working with external visitors.

“What makes a great classroom visitor?”

“What makes Loudmouth a great classroom visitor?”

You can also stay tuned for further support regarding the new guidance by reading other blog posts on our website.

Finally, make sure you check out our information on the Roadmap to Statutory RSE, created by the Sex Education Forum and PSHE Association.