E-Safety
E-Safety in School
At St. Benedict’s our pupils are regularly exposed to online safety teaching. This starts with our RSE/PSHE scheme, then our KS1 & KS2 children are taught E-Safety through our chosen scheme: “Education for a Connected World”. Through this teaching, pupils know how to keep themselves safe online and what to do if they see something that they don’t like online or if they don’t feel safe.
We also have Internet Safety days and assemblies.
Filtering and Monitoring
In school we have two electronic safeguards to prevent pupils from stumbling onto inappropriate information and to inform DSLs about any concerns:
- RM Safety Net provides web filtering
- Smoothwall Monitor which monitors and captures user activity as it happens, automatically sending potential risks through to our DSL Team.
No filtering system can be 100% effective. With this in mind, physical monitoring by staff watching screens of users
is also important. Safeguarding leads will also to spot checks on devices to ensure that our Filtering and Monitoring systems aren’t missing anything.
*It is important to note that if a pupil, on a home device, logs in using their school Google account, their browsing history at home, even on a private device, may be visible to our filtering and monitoring systems and therefore to Safeguarding Staff if an alert is triggered by the automatic system.
E-Safety Information for Parents and Carers
Children and young people spend a lot of time online – it can be a great way for them to socialise, explore and have fun. But children do also face risks like cyber bulling, seeing content that’s inappropriate or being groomed.
Offenders are where the children Are!
One of the fundamental and most important messages within safeguarding training (particularly online safety) is ‘offenders are where the children are.’ Although this may sound obvious, the tactics that offenders use are not always obvious. We all know that criminals will use a variety of social engineering tactics, but to be able to use those tactics there has to be some form of engagement, which requires communications features. So whether that is messaging on Snapchat or chatting within Roblox, if there is a communication feature there is a risk to any child or young person. You may be aware of Spotify, the globally popular music streaming service. Spotify doesn’t have the traditional messaging features but THIS news article shows how criminals will use any means possible to coerce and exploit children and young people.
Stay safe
There are ways that you can keep children and young people safe:
Talking to your child is one of the best ways to keep them safe. You can also use parental controls on social networks, online games and browsers and on both hardware and software that can filter or monitor what your child can see.
Preventing your children from using the internet or mobile phones won’t keep them safe in the long run, so it’s important to have conversations that help your child understand how to stay safe and what to do if they ever feel scared or uncomfortable.
Here are a few tips on how to keep them safe:
- Have the conversation early and often
- Explore online together
- Know who your child is talking to online
- Set rules and agree boundaries
- Make sure that content is age-appropriate
- Use parental controls to filter, restrict, monitor or report content
- Check they know how to use privacy settings and reporting tools
Game Finder
Finding games for children which are appropriate for their age, which work on the devices the children use and the children will actually enjoy playing can be a minefield, particularly when parents are being bombarded with the ‘but everyone else is playing this game’ guilt trip. Game Finder is a new (free) service available from Taming Gaming which walks parents through various aspects, such as how old is your child? What devices do they have? What types of games do they like to play? And then gives a list of recommendations of suitable games. I’ve used this a few times and it is brilliant, you can find Game Finder HERE.
Trust E-Safety Policy
The BKCAT Trust eSafety policy can be found on the trust website here. Search “esafety”
Useful links about E-Safety
- Parent Zone
- NSPCC E-Safety
- Childline
- Childline is a free service which is able to support children to deal with a wide range of problems including online safety issues. This is an important service to make your children aware of as they can contact ChildLine 24 hours a day, 7 days a week if they are struggling to deal with a situation and need support. For children uncomfortable with talking to somebody directly there is a one-to-one online chat service.
- Young Minds
- Young Minds is a charity which is committed to improving the emotional wellbeing and mental health of children and young people. It offers children 24/7 access to trained volunteers with support from experienced clinical supervisors. It also provides a helpline for parents.
- CEOP Education
- The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) is a branch within the police which helps young people who are being approached online about sex or are suffering sexual abuse. It is essential that children know when to ‘Click CEOP’ as this can be the most effective means for stopping grooming, sexual abuse of many types and sexploitation. If talking with children about such online safety issues it is important to remind them of the availability of this service and the support it offers.
- Kooth
- Kooth provides free, safe and anonymous online support for young people. If you have concerns or need advice Kooth provides lots of guidance and even anonymous access to teams of friendly counsellors who are expert in providing mental health support to young people. You can contact them until 10pm every day. Visit www.kooth.com for more information.
- Report-Remove
- ‘Report-Remove’ is a tool provided by ChildLine and the Internet Watch Foundation. If a child under 18 discovers that a nude image or video of them has been shared online, they can use this tool to report it and have it removed from the internet.
- Shout
- Shout is a new service to support people who are struggling with their mental health. Shout is the UK’s first free 24/7 text service for anyone in crisis anytime, anywhere. It’s a place for people to go if they are struggling to cope and you need immediate help. Making pupils aware of this service could be extremely useful, particularly for when issues arise outside school hours or during holidays. Anybody can text Shout to 85258 for support.
Online Safety Newsletters
Please find below our monthly Online Safety Newsletters which contain useful information and important updates for parents to help keep our children safe online.
Online Safety Newsletter January 23
Online Safety Newsletter April 2023
Online Safety Newsletter May 2023
Online Safety Newsletter June 2023
Online Safety Newsletter October 2023
Online Safety Newsletter November 2023
Online Safety Newsletter February 2024
Online Safety Newsletter March 2024
Online Safety Newsletter April 2024
