No single sign proves anything. Children limp for a hundred reasons, go quiet for a thousand. What deserves your attention is change and pattern — a child who is suddenly different, and stays different.
Changes worth noticing
- Behaviour: a lively child gone silent or a quiet child suddenly explosive; new aggression; fear of a particular person, place or activity that wasn't there before; flinching at ordinary touch.
- Body: injuries that don't fit the story given for them, or that repeat; pain sitting or walking; hunger that food at home should be covering; wearing covering clothes in heat.
- Habits: sleeping in class repeatedly; sudden drop in schoolwork; stopping activities they loved; new money or gifts they can't explain comfortably.
- Words: knowledge or language about sex far beyond their age; jokes that aren't jokes; "my friend has a problem" stories told with too much feeling; saying they don't want to go home — especially said quietly, not in anger.
- Around the child: an adult who engineers time alone with them, gives them special gifts, or tests small boundary crossings in public.
What to do
Notice, record, refer. Write down what you observed — dates, facts, the child's own words if any — without interpretation. Take it to your safeguarding focal person. Two teachers' small observations, side by side, are often the picture neither could see alone. If there is immediate danger, act today: focal person, 116, or the police Child & Family Protection Unit.
Stay warm and ordinary with the child. Your job is to remain a safe adult they might choose — not to become an investigator.
What not to do
Don't question the child to confirm your theory — if they choose to tell you, follow the disclosure standard; don't go looking. Don't examine a child's body for evidence. Don't confront the family or the suspected person. Don't discuss your suspicion in the staff room. And don't decide it's nothing because the child laughed today — patterns matter more than moments, in both directions.