During the nearly two-year process of brainstorming, determining and defining these values, safety was perhaps the most debated. Should it really be included in the final list? For some in our community, safety seemed almost too obvious to name. After all, safety is fundamental to a successful school. Why would something so self-evident deserve to stand alongside our other core values?
Yet, through dialogue and reflection, we began to recognize that safety is far from simple—and far from something we can take for granted. It extends well beyond making sure furniture and equipment are in good order, or ensuring that fire and earthquake drills are rehearsed. Safety is a culture, a mindset. It is about meeting the most essential human needs—physical and emotional—so that individuals can flourish. Safety is not an obvious task to be completed, but a core responsibility to be embraced.
With the help of our students, we came to see safety not as a checklist of compliance, but as a mindset fundamental to our aspirations for individual learner identity and community belonging. Students talked about safety as both physical and emotional: finding a safe space to speak their minds, to become who they want to be, to feel secure in their identity and their purpose. Safety means being free to express beliefs, values, and perspectives, and to engage in the kind of critical thought essential for life beyond school.
It was therefore fitting that our first major professional development event of the year was an event held on the NIS campus sponsored by the Tokai International Schools Association (TISA), centered on safeguarding and child protection. We were delighted to welcome colleagues from TISA to NIS, where together we were able to explore safeguarding practices and strengthen our collective capacity to keep children safe across the region.
In a full-day event with nearly 70 educators and leaders from international preschools and schools in the region, we considered how to build a culture of safeguarding in our communities. NIS Secondary Principal L. Nnadozie led discussions with classroom practitioners on creating relational spaces where children feel respected, heard, and empowered to advocate for their safety, as well as training for teachers on how to receive disclosures of harm from students.
I was grateful for the opportunity to facilitate a group of school leaders from across the region in examining the role of policy and practice in shaping safeguarding culture, from broad umbrella policies around child protection to more specific frameworks such as managing allegations and addressing peer-on-peer abuse. What became clear in these conversations was both the shared commitment of educators across the TISA region to keeping children safe, and the collective capacity we have to support one another in this responsibility.
Here at NIS, safeguarding has always been a key anchor for building a wider culture of community safety. Safeguarding means building and maintaining the systems that ensure that risks of harm are mitigated and spaces of safety are allowed to flourish.
Our work goes beyond compliance mechanisms, checklists, or behavioural rules. It connects directly to the curriculum: teaching children how to advocate for themselves, respect the rights of others, and understand their own rights from the earliest years. This begins with education around family, friends and ownership of one’s body, and develops into more complex discussions on relationships, identity, and the inalienable right to consent. It is a safeguarding culture grounded in truly listening—with dignity—to every member of our community and allowing each child their voice. You see this reflected in practices such as circle time, morning meeting, and our restorative approaches that both prevent and respond when harm has occurred. And you see it in our child protection systems that are ready to activate whenever harm presents itself and children are found to be at risk.
Of course, our journey is ongoing. As new staff, students, and parents join, it is our responsibility to welcome them into our safeguarding culture. As risks evolve in our rapidly changing world, we must continually reflect and adapt to protect our children. What gives us confidence at NIS is not only our collective commitment, but also the quality of the people who lead this work. Joining Ms. Nnadozie and me in leading this workshop were several of our senior leaders, all of whom contributed meaningfully to the conversations and helped support the collective capacity of the TISA group. Together, and with colleagues partnering from our neighboring schools, this strong team continues to raise safeguarding standards for all of our students — at NIS and across the region.
We encourage parents to learn more about our approach to safeguarding and child protection by visiting the Safeguarding page on the NIS website https://www.nis.ac.jp/about/our-guiding-statements/safeguarding-policy. We also look forward to holding sessions with parents throughout the year to share more about not only our safeguarding and child protection at NIS, but also our other new school values.
Thank you for helping our community on this learning journey at NIS to help our students inquire, inspire, impact and include, while nurturing our values of belonging, responsibility, growth and safety!