Online Safety
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Our children today live in a technology rich world, where they can access a range of resources at the touch of a button. Whilst the technology is a great learning platform, there obviously are some risks which children and families need to be aware of.
Key to the schools safeguarding policy is having a robust online safety curriculum in place. As a result, we embed the teaching of online safety throughout the whole curriculum and actively encourage children to practise being safe online.
As a school, we use ProjectEVOLVE to support our teaching and assessment of online safety. ProjectEVOLVE is based on the UK Council for Internet Safety’s framework “Education for a Connected World” that covers knowledge, skills, behaviours and attitudes across eight strands of our online lives from early years right through to eighteen. The strands are:
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Self-Image and Identity
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Online Relationships
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Online Reputation
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Online Bullying
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Managing Information
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Health, Wellbeing and Lifestyle
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Privacy and Security
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Copyright and Ownership
Each of the eight strands above will be covered every year with the whole school covering the same strand at the same time. At the beginning of each half-term, children will complete a digital quiz in which they will pick a response to a variety of age-appropriate scenarios about their online lives. These responses are reviewed by the teachers and will support the planning of appropriate lessons.
During dedicated online safety lessons, each child will complete activities and worksheets as well as recording the main online safety learning from that lesson in their personal online safety booklet. These booklets will be revisited throughout the year to support the children in remembering the key online safety messages. To ensure every child receives the online safety information, anyone who is not present is required to complete the lesson when they return.
Once the children have completed a unit of work they will complete the digital quiz again to allow the impact of their online safety lessons to be assessed. Any areas of concern that arise following these quizzes will be revised and re-assessed during the next unit of work.
In addition to their online safety lessons, school continues to provide many channels through which pupils are enabled to learn about and be reminded of how to keep safe online. This includes assemblies, participation in online safety whole-school competitions and events, the displaying of visual reminders on IT equipment and specialist organisations invited into school to share messages.
Our internet is filtered appropriately via our IT provider MINT, who use software to continually monitor and update blacklisted websites. MINT provide filtering software through the broadband provision. The school uses Net Support DNA to monitor electronic keystrokes within school. The school online safety policy covers monitoring and filtering.
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As a school, we promote the use of SWIGGLE as a child friendly search engine as opposed to GOOGLE and, as per their user agreement, children are actively encouraged to come forward if they think they have come across anything unsuitable online.
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Information for Parents and Carers
We stress that the school must work in partnership with parents around online safety and welcome any information that you may have in order to keep all children safe online. Communication from school, including our Twitter page, will include online safety updates so please look out for this information. If you have any queries about an aspect of online safety please contact Mr Lee (online safety coordinator) via the office.
Age Appropriate Use of Social Media
Use of social media beyond the school day is the responsibility of parents. The school’s responsibility is to support pupils in making the right choices and keeping safe online. When children are reporting that they feel unsafe online to adults in school, we will talk to pupils and parents where appropriate and if we suspect online grooming is taking place or a child is at risk in their use of social media we will report this to CEOP.
It is the parents’ responsibility to ensure that the social media apps that children are using are age appropriate. The minimum age to open an account on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr and Snapchat is 13. WhatsApp requires a minimum age of 16 and YouTube requires account holders to be 18, but a 13-year-old can sign up with a parent's permission.
Please help us to help you and your children. If you are allowing your under-age child to use social media apps below the recommended age limit then please monitor their use and talk parent to parent if you have issues with your children’s communication with each other online out of school.
Below is some great advice that you can give your children about being on line
The internet is a brilliant place for learning, speaking to friends and family, and playing games. However, it is very important to understand how to use it safely and how to deal with any problems you may come across. Staying safe when using the internet and other new technologies is known as online safety.
Online safety is not just about computers but also refers to other new technologies you can use to communicate with other people, such as mobile phones, iPads, iPods, and games consoles.
Following these rules will help you to stay safe when you use the internet:
1. Never write any personal information about yourself on the internet – this includes your phone number, address, passwords and surname.
2. Only write kind, positive things about others online.
3. Never arrange to meet up with somebody you have met on the internet. Remember that if you haven’t met someone in real life, they’re still a STRANGER.
4. Always tell a responsible adult (like a parent, grandparent, older brother or sister, or a teacher in school) if you see anything on the internet which you find upsetting, offensive or in any way inappropriate. They will be able to help you.
5. NEVER add people as ‘friends’ on the internet unless you are friends with them in real life. These people are still STRANGERS.
Online Safety Lead
Mr Lee
If you have any concerns regarding online safety, please contact Mr Lee via the main school office.
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We stress that the school must work in partnership with parents around this area and welcome any information that you may have in order to keep all children safe on-line
Top Tips for On-Line Safety
The internet is a brilliant place for learning, speaking to friends and family, and playing games. However, it is very important to understand how to use it safely and how to deal with any problems you may come across. Staying safe when using the internet and other new technologies is known as E-Safety.
E-Safety is not just about computers but also refers to other new technologies you can use to communicate with other people, such as mobile phones, iPads, iPods, and games consoles like XBOX 360s and PS4s.
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Following these rules will help you to stay safe when you use the internet:
1. Never write any personal information about yourself on the internet – this includes your phone number, address, passwords and surname.
2. Only write kind, positive things about others online.
3. Never arrange to meet up with somebody you have met on the internet. Remember that if you haven’t met someone in real life, they’re still a STRANGER.
4. Always tell a responsible adult (like a parent, grandparent, older brother or sister, or a teacher in school) if you see anything on the internet which you find upsetting, offensive or in any way inappropriate. They will be able to help you.
5. NEVER add people as ‘friends’ on the internet unless you are friends with them in real life. This includes on sites and services like Bebo, Facebook, MSN/Windows Live Messenger and many more. These people are still STRANGERS.
Useful Links
Useful links online with information on how to keep your children safe online. There are links to help set up parental controls, and also to help make you aware why children could be at risk when using the internet or online devices.
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The link below has hyperlinks which direct you straight to the website of the system being used, for example if you select Playstation 3, it will direct you to the parental controls section of the Sony Playstation website.
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http://parentinfo.org/page/for-schools
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http://www.westyorkshire.police.uk/cse/onlineguides
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http://www.vodafone.com/content/parents.html/
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http://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/keeping-children-safe/share-aware/
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http://www.childline.org.uk/pages/home.aspx
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https://parentinfo.org/article/tiktok-what-parents-need-to-know
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Click on the link to the left to access some of the most commonly asked questions.
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As always, if you have specific worries, questions or concerns regarding the safety of a child on-line, speak to Mr Lee, as e-safety lead, or one of the Designated Safeguarding Leads, (Miss Kelly, Mrs Kendall or Mrs Hemingway)
