“Dilworth recognised the need for a specialist in health and safety and student safeguarding. I work across all three of our campuses, giving advice and guidance to senior leadership and the Board, as well as offering help and support to teachers and other members of staff.”
Stephen Ralph, Director of Health and Safety
Keeping students safe from harm is Dilworth’s highest priority, and the school continues to work incredibly hard to build a new culture from the ground up. Student safety is right at the centre of everything it does. For Dilworth, safety includes physical health and safety, as well as student safeguarding, as the school works to continually improve to ensure the historical abuse that occurred at the school is never repeated.
The seriousness with which the school takes the issue is demonstrated through its employment of a Director of Health and Safety and a Head of Safeguarding, both dedicated, full-time positions. The roles work together and have contributed significantly to developing and strengthening a new culture, one where student welfare is a cornerstone responsibility for everyone employed at the School and with a greatly amplified student voice.
Stephen Ralph, Director of Health and Safety - also known as “Safety Steve” - says his role was established in 2023. “Dilworth recognised the need to have a specialist in health and safety, as well as student safeguarding, right across the whole organisation. I work across all three of our campuses, giving advice and guidance to senior leadership and the Board, as well as offering help and support to teachers and other members of staff.”
He says his job is to give everyone the skills, knowledge, and tools to be able to undertake everything the school does safely. “Culture is what happens when the boss isn’t looking,” Steve says. “It’s not about restricting opportunities for the boys. It’s about promoting things to happen - but in a safe way.” Whether that’s in the science lab, in our Learning in the Outdoors programme, in sports, or when we’re away on field trips, Dilworth today has a culture where safety isn’t just my job to manage. It’s everyone’s. We talk about not walking on by. If you see something, you need to say and do something about it.”
As a former teacher with 12 years of specialist experience in the health and safety field, Steve has been working in school environments for a long time. “A lot of what I do is mentoring and coaching people”, he says. “Just having conversations and asking, ‘Why are you doing this? How can we do it differently? Have you thought about doing it this way?’ But we’ve also developed, and continue to develop, and review all the systems behind it, the policies, procedures, and the checks and balances such as reviews and audits. We don’t do all of that stuff because we have to - we do it because it’s the right thing to do. We’re passionate about everyone getting home safely, every day.”
One example of Dilworth’s total commitment to safety can be found in the work the school has done around its Learning in the Outdoors Programme. Based at its Mangatāwhiri campus, the safety management system has qualified to meet commercial standards. Steve says: “We’re externally audited by Qualworx against Adventure Activity regulations, so we’ve gone to a commercial level of safety certification, which is pretty cool. We’ve significantly exceeded what’s required for a school. Why? Again, because it’s the right thing to do. What that means for parents is there’s an assurance an external person, experienced in the industry, has come in and done an independent review of how we run our programme, and approved us as safe to operate.”
The other area of student safety where Dilworth has focused it’s efforts to create a new culture is in student safeguarding. Head of Safeguarding, Mattie Naseri, is tasked with one of its most critical roles - leading the school’s systems, processes, and wider culture of student safety and welfare.
Dilworth’s Child Wise accreditation in September 2022 affirms the school has met the criteria to be a student-safe environment under the umbrella of the Australian Childhood Foundation. Accreditation included an independent review of the school, which came back with a range of recommendations - none of them optional. “It was a major piece of work, and one that we’re really proud of,” Mattie says. “We’ve implemented every one of the recommendations, But we’re always on a journey to get better. We all work to a philosophy of continuous improvement.”
The school has systems in place to ensure students can easily speak up about any issues that matter to them, immediately, anonymously if they’d like to, and free from any fear of repercussion, or their issue not being taken seriously. Mattie says the school has a Statement of Commitment, which is signed by all staff. “It affirms why we’re here, for the growth and welfare of our students and our school community, and it puts us all on the same page. Student safety comes first. All our staff have completed student safety training, and we have a zero-tolerance policy towards any kind of abuse. The new Dilworth uses proper lines of reporting, following formal policies and procedures. I think it is vital for parents to know, as well as our Old Boys who didn’t have the protections of this system, that this is the school’s number one priority and we take it incredibly seriously. It’s become part of our cultural DNA.”
The School also involves students in its decision-making, ensuring their voices are clearly heard. Mattie: “Recognising student voice is a critical principle in gaining Child Wise accreditation. We have done a lot of work and put systems in place to make sure we’re capturing the student voice, and we all feel that when we’re communicating with students, when we have their support, then everything runs a lot smoother. They know we are listening to them - the school is not about us just making the decisions, and them following orders.”
To help hear any issues students are facing, Dilworth uses Stymie, an anonymous web-based platform that enables students to report any concerns. “It’s my job - along with other members of staff - to respond to ‘Stymies’, to keep on top of them, and to allocate staff and resource as necessary. We meet once a week to cross-reference and make sure nothing’s been missed. Have we followed up on this one? What happened here?”
Dilworth also has a strict policy of zero-tolerance for bullying. “The school won’t accept it and our students know this, and we make sure the staff know how to look for the signs,” Mattie says. “That way we can jump on it immediately, and not allow it to escalate. We’re incredibly fortunate as a school in that we have a whole pastoral team we can involve. We have a lot of support we can offer our students.”