Online Safety
The requirement to ensure that children and young people can use the internet and related communications technologies appropriately and safely is addressed as part of the wider duty of care to which all who work in schools are bound. Our school online safety policy helps to ensure safe and appropriate use. The development and implementation of such a strategy involves all the stakeholders from the headteacher and governors to the senior leaders and classroom teachers, support staff, parents, members of the community and the pupils themselves.
However, the use of these new technologies can put young people at risk within and outside the school. Some of the dangers they may face include:
- Access to illegal, harmful or inappropriate images or other content
- Unauthorised access to/loss of/sharing of personal information
- The risk of being subject to grooming by those with whom they make contact on the internet.
- The sharing/distribution of personal images without an individual’s consent or knowledge
- Inappropriate communication/contact with others, including strangers.
- Cyber-bullying
- Access to unsuitable video/internet games
- An inability to evaluate the quality, accuracy and relevance of information on the internet
- Illegal downloading of music or video files
- The potential for excessive use which may impact on the social and emotional development and learning of the young person.
Many of these risks reflect situations in the off-line world and our online safety policy is used in conjunction with other school policies (eg behaviour, anti-bullying and child protection policies).
As with all other risks, it is impossible to eliminate those risks completely. It is therefore essential, through good educational provision to build pupils’ resilience to the risks to which they may be exposed, so that they have the confidence and skills to face and deal with these risks.
The school has provided the necessary safeguards to help ensure that we have done everything that could reasonably be expected of us to manage and reduce these risks. Our online safety policy explains how we intend to do this, while also addressing wider educational issues in order to help young people (and their parents/carers) to be responsible users and stay safe while using the internet and other communications technologies for educational, personal and recreational use.
