As part of our Safer Internet Day celebrations, and our top-ranked 360 Online Safety Curriculum Award, we are flagging up the wide-ranging methods we use to protect our students online and to educate them so that they can take on the personal responsibility of online safety when they are at home or out-and-about in our community.
The key safeguarding document in schools is ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’ and it is clear on the farm duties schools have in terms of online safety:
Whilst considering their responsibility to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and provide them with a safe environment in which to learn, governing bodies and proprietors should be doing all that they reasonably can to limit children’s exposure to the above risks from the school’s or college’s IT system. As part of this process, governing bodies and proprietors should ensure their school or college has appropriate filters and monitoring systems in place and regularly review their effectiveness. They should ensure that the leadership team and relevant staff have an awareness and understanding of the provisions in place and manage them effectively and know how to escalate concerns when identified. Governing bodies and proprietors should consider the age range of their children, the number of children, how often they access the IT system and the proportionality of costs verses safeguarding risks.”
One element of our work here is filtering. This is where we as a school control what people are able to access on our internet and mainly involves blocking inappropriate content.
A second element of our work here is monitoring. This is where we as a school check what people are looking at one our online system and our system flags up inappropriate words, bullying, inappropriate search terms, etc.
We use a product called Smoothwall which means that keywords lists are maintained to flag their usage – whether on a Word Document or on a search engine. Also, it allows key staff to see violations immediately and issue temporary internet bans to students. It also allows more granular filtering; for example, allowing YouTube for Year 12 and 13 students but not students in other Years, and it allows IT staff to view search and browsing histories for individual users.
Essentially, whatever a child types into a computer at out school is monitored and reviewed so that anything which elicits concern is picked up and dealt with.
In addition to this, we have scheduled lessons in our curriculum to encourage online safety, PHSE sessions we explore related issues such as Child Sexual Exploitation and County Lines, and Focus Weeks which address the issues surrounding online safety and personal safeguarding. It is an important part of our work to educate our students on the responsibilities and personal safety measures they need to adopt both now, but also in later life, and like many things in life this comes through education.
Parents will also be aware that we run online safety sessions in our Partnership Evening programmes and our website and social media platforms flag up online safety risks on a regular basis.
This important element of our work is also monitored by our Governing Body so that they are well-versed in the strategies and measures we put in place to protect our students.
Matt Allman, Headteacher, said: “The huge measures we put in place in school are part of statutory requirements for schools, but just as important is the education as we can be sure the depth of coverage we operate with is not replicated at home and in wider society. We push the message with all parents that they have to be active and up-to-date in supporting their children online as the majority of the time children are not under our direct control. Online safety s about responsibility and care and if this message is sustained and measured form both home and school then risks can be avoided.”
