Staying Safe Online
The Internet is an increasingly important element in 21st century life for education, business and social interaction. The school has a duty to provide pupils with high-quality Internet access as part of their learning experience. Internet use is a part of the statutory curriculum and a necessary learning tool for staff and pupils. The school Internet access will be designed expressly for pupil use and filtering is set at the highest level.
The breadth of issues classified within online safety is considerable and ever evolving, but can be categorised into four areas of risk:
- content: being exposed to illegal, inappropriate, or harmful content, for example: pornography, fake news, racism, misogyny, self-harm, suicide, anti-Semitism, radicalisation, and extremism.
- contact: being subjected to harmful online interaction with other users; for example: peer to peer pressure, commercial advertising and adults posing as children or young adults with the intention to groom or exploit them for sexual, criminal, financial or other purposes.
- conduct: online behaviour that increases the likelihood of, or causes, harm; for example, making, sending and receiving explicit images (e.g. consensual and non-consensual sharing of nudes and semi-nudes and/or pornography, sharing other explicit images and online bullying, and
- commerce: - risks such as online gambling, inappropriate advertising, phishing and or financial scams which can be reported to the Anti-Phishing Working Group (https://apwg.org/)
The website LGFL is a very useful one for parents and gives lots of information and advice for keeping your child safe online. Please view at https://parentsafe.lgfl.net/#h.kiustevr44ys
You will find a range of Top Tips, Hot Topics, Reporting concerns, Cyberbullying, relationships, videos, screentime, talking to your child about keeping safe for example.
It helps parents to add safe settings, controls and monitoring of device usage to keep your child safe online.
In school we promote internet safety ensuring that all computers have Hector the Protector (visible as a dolphin) on them, allowing children to also take ownership of their own internet safety. Hector is available to download free of charge on home computers from here.
#Ditto is a free online safety magazine to help you to stay up to date with the latest apps and advice for keeping your child safe online. Click here to access the latest issue.
Childnet and Connect Safely also have lots of tips, advice and have regular updates to keep your children safe online.
To help with online safety at home, we advise that parental controls are used on technology around the home. For more information please click here to access the UK Safer Internet Centre website for quick, easy to use guides for setting up parental controls on different internet providers.
Online safety advice suggests that parents make themselves aware of the applications children are using and their minimum age requirements. Common Sense Media also have a detailed list of apps recommended for children of different ages. Click here to access.
CEOP – We are here to help and give you advice, and you can make a report directly to us if something has happened online which has made you feel unsafe, scared or worried. This might be from someone you know in real life, or someone you have only ever met online. We take all reports seriously and we will do everything we can to keep you safe.
As well as making a report to us, the CEOP website has information and advice to help you if something has happened to you online.