Online Safety at Flamstead

At our school, online safety plays an important part of our safeguarding curriculum offer.  We understand that, in the ever-changing world, keeping on top of changes and developments is very difficult for children, parents and educators.  We focus on:

1. How our children are kept safe when accessing the internet within school
2. How we teach our children to keep themselves safe at home and how parents and carers are also kept aware of key issues

How our children are kept safe when accessing the internet within school

Our school uses the HfL Education school broadband offer, which includes a number of safeguards for accessing the internet.  All internet traffic from school must pass through the HfL firewall, which prevents access to a number of types of website.  This filtering is set to a level, used across Hertfordshire, which allows wide access whilst ensuring that the most risky sites are not available.  There are a number of safeguards to ensure that this system works as intended:

• RM Safety Net - This is a system which provides reports and accessibility around the filtering within school.  Should certain sites be accessed within school or attempted to access, reports will be sent to Mr Maher.  With the help our our IT provider, this can then be tracked back to individual users.
• School Data Backups - All data held on the school network, including personal data is held securely in a number of places.  It is regularly backed up in case of data loss or cyber attack.  This includes on backup drives within school and on an off-site server (in the UK).

How we teach our children to keep themselves safe

Within school, we have a robust curriculum, which offers pupils a range of opportunities to learn about issues related to online safety.  The curriculum input includes:

• Specific learning through our Computing curriculum units
• Specific learning through other curriculum area, for example PSHE.

We also run a number of special curriculum days, including Safer Internet Day, where we may have visits from key speakers.

Regular updates about online safety are sent to staff and included in school newsletters for parents.

Our local Family Support Service also offer bespoke support to families (in particular parents) around how they can work to keep their children safe whilst online.

The internet is an exciting and fun place for adults and children to use and explore educationally and socially.  The challenge for parents, carers and teachers is to make sure our children are aware and understand how to be safe when using the internet and related technologies.

Below is a list of recommended sites

Parent Info - provides high quality information to parents and carers about their children's wellbeing and resilience. Schools can host the content on their own website and use it in any other ways (in letters to parents etc) that they want.

Parent Zone

UK Safer Internet Centre - online Safety tips, advice and resources to help children and young people stay safe on the internet.

Childnet International - an organisation working directly with children, parents and teachers to ensure that the issues of online child protection and the safe and positive use of the internet are addressed.

ThinkuKnow - the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre's own website which has been designed and written specifically for children, young people, teachers, parents and carers.

Internetmatters.org - specific help on how to set up internet controls at home. Guidance and articles for parents about keeping children safe online.

Digizen.org - a website designed to strengthen awareness and understanding of what digital citizenship is. It encourages users of technology to be and become responsible digital citizens.