From Keeping Children Safe in Education:
The use of technology has become a significant component of many safeguarding issues. Child sexual exploitation; radicalisation; sexual predation- technology often provides the platform that facilitates harm. An effective approach to online safety empowers a school or college to protect and educate the whole school or college community in their use of technology and establishes mechanisms to identify, intervene and escalate any incident where appropriate.
The breadth of issues classified within online safety is considerable, but can be categorised into three areas of risk:
- Content: being exposed to illegal, inappropriate or harmful material
- Contact: being subjected to harmful online interaction with other users
- Conduct: personal online behaviour that increases the likelihood of, or causes, harm
The Internet and other digital and information technologies are powerful tools, which open up new opportunities for everyone. Electronic communication helps teachers and pupils learn from each other. These technologies can stimulate discussion, promote creativity and increase awareness of context to promote effective learning. Children and young people should have an entitlement to safe internet access at all times.
At Caedmon, we ensure that children learn how to use these technologies safely by starting our computing curriculum each term with an Online Safety unit of work.
We have offered sessions to support parents in this area and have used agencies such as the NSPCC to support with this. Regular updates are shared with parents via Parent Mail or our Facebook page.
Please see our Policy page for the Online Safety Policy.
Useful Resources
Cleveland Police have produced a leaflet with information to help pupils stay safe online. Please click on the link below.
Cleveland Police – Stay Safe Online
Please click on the link below for information from the NSPCC.
Please click on the link below for our information leaflet to parents/carers, providing information on online safety.
Social Media
The legal age to have many of the popular social media accounts is 13.
Reporting Online Abuse
If you have been a victim of online abuse or you are worried about someone else, please click the icon below to report it securely.
CEOP Ambassador
Stacey Downing, Designated Safeguarding Lead, is soon to complete the CEOP Ambassador training. This will allow her to facilitate training for pupils, staff, parents and other members of the school community.
