Online safety

Online safety is an essential part of children's education and life in the digital world they are growing up in, it is embedded in their learning at school. The internet is a fantastic resource, but it can also bring risks. We work with our pupils in school to help them understand the dangers and we teach them ways in which to keep themselves safe. 

As a school to ensure that our children are up to date with current and continuously changing online safety issues, we teach them to have a clear understanding on how to prevent incidents online and what they should do if they do have any incidents or questions.

Whilst our school has comprehensive safeguarding arrangements in place to ensure our pupils’ online safety, it is equally as important for parents to talk to their children about online safety and monitor their internet usage at home, using age-appropriate parental controls to restrict their access to unsavoury material. Parental controls can be activated on home broadband, search engines, YouTube, mobile phones and games consoles.

Whilst it may not always be easy to talk to your child about challenging issues, if you are open and honest with them about the dangers they may encounter online, it may encourage them to confide in you in the future. If you are concerned that your child is being secretive or spending too much time online, it may be worth moving their computer into a communal family area so that you can keep an eye on them.

You should encourage your child to act responsibility online, and treat others as they would wish to be treated. You should also warn your child that they should never hide behind an anonymous user name to make unkind comments, or say something they would be reluctant to repeat during face-to-face interactions. Remind your child that the comments they make and the pictures and videos they post online may end up having a wider audience than they anticipated – and even if they delete them, there’s no guarantee that someone hasn’t already saved, downloaded or taken a screen shot of their post.

Using the Internet Safely at Home

Many internet providers offer filtering systems to help you safeguard your child at home. We advise parents, in addition to this, to set the security levels within the browsers they use. It is advised that you locate the computer in a family area, not in the bedroom, as this will enable you to supervise children as they use the internet. 

In addition to this it is important to talk to your children about how to keep safe online when using the computer. Below is a copy of rules on how to keep safe online that we use in school with the children.

To help keep your children safe online we have attached a number of posters for parents and carers to read. These can be found on the National Online Safety website (https://nationalonlinesafety.com/)