Online Safety
Taken from "Keeping Children Safe in Education" DfE, September 2016
The use of technology has become a significant component of many safeguarding issues. An effective approach to online safety empowers a school or college to protect and educate the whole school or college community in their use of technology and establishes mechanisms to identify, intervene in and escalate any incident where appropriate.
The breadth of issues classified within online safety is considerable, but can be categorised into three areas of risk:
- CONTENT: being exposed to illegal, inappropriate or harmful material;
- CONTACT; being subjected to harmful online interaction with other users; and
- CONDUCT: personal online behaviour that increases the likelihood of, or causes, harm.
Our Online Safety Policy, Acceptable Use Agreement KS1 and KS2 together with our Social Media Policy and Acceptable Use Agreement for Parents and Carers can be found here. Also guidance for parents on Social Media. Copies of our Staff Guidance on the Safer Use of the Internet and Acceptable Use Policy for Staff are available in the school office.
The curriculum we follow is from www.swgfl.org.uk/digitalliteracy
Child safety on YouTube: parent factsheet
What is fake news and how to spot it: YouTube video
How to use WhatsApp and keep your children's information private: Parents Guide
Resources from the Internet Safety talk in March 2018:
Parents - Keeping your kids safe online
Safety Net online safety contract
How to keep kids safe on YouTube
TikTok safetySnapChat safetyInstagram safety
Social media safety, help for parents
Staff Training
Governors should ensure that, as part of the requirement for staff to undergo regularly updated safeguarding training and the requirement to ensure children are taught about safeguarding, including online, that online safety training for staff is integrated, aligned and considered as part of the overarching safeguarding approach.
Filters and Monitoring
Governing bodies should be doing all that they reasonably can to limit children's exposure to the above risks form the school 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. 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 consider the age range of their pupils, the number of pupils, how often they access the IT system and the proportionality of costs vs risks.
Storrington Primary School has adopted the West Sussex Internet Filtering Policy.
Information and Support
There is a wealth of information available to support schools and colleges to keep children safe online. The following is not exhaustive but should provide a useful starting point:
www.childnet.com/cyberbullying-guidance
http://www.safety-net.org.uk/online safety
SafetyNet: 01273 411613
Childline: 0800 1111 www.childline.org.uk
http://www.childnet.com/ufiles/Keeping-Under-Fives-Safe-Online.pdf