Online Safety
With technology and the internet being part of everyday life, online safety is key. A young person’s online world may consist of social, chat forums, online games, websites and more, all of which can be accessed via laptops, mobile phones and tablets. This makes them incredibly accessible, 24/7, and opens them up to new online risks, from grooming, cyberbullying and radicalisation, to sexting and more – meaning that it’s more important than ever to educate young people about these threats, how to be a good digital citizen and how to keep themselves safe online. Below are some useful websites on how to keep children safe online: Schools and parents working together The internet is ever present, so that means online safety issues do not simply start and stop at the school gate or within the home; the risks extend across both locations and beyond. Therefore, to successfully protect students from online dangers, a joined-up approach with schools and parents/carers working together is best. Please refer to your home school’s website for additional and specific guidance. Filtering: RM SafetyNet All schools in the Trust are with HFL for their broadband service which also provides a filtering solution through RM SafetyNet. RM SafetyNet ensures that illegal, harmful and inappropriate content is blocked, whilst allowing our schools to choose which additional web resources are available to their users. RM SafetyNet uses an active content filter that looks for good words as well as bad words to ensure the context of the web page is understood, this ensures that pupils have access to sites that may contain certain words within the context of education but may be blocked by excessive filtering solutions. Monitoring: NetSupport classroom.cloud Providing a safe and secure learning environment has always been a top priority, but it is also now a legislative requirement placed on schools under KCSiE. The majority of schools within the Trust utilise NetSupport’s classroom.cloud for internet monitoring purposes, with the exception of Verulam School who use Smoothwall. This helps schools within our Trust meet our statutory requirements in providing as safe an online environment as possible. NetSupport classroom.cloud and Smoothwall provide increased transparency around a child or young person’s online activity providing safeguarding alerts which highlights students at risk, any concerning trends, blocking harmful content and more. To find out more about NetSupport classroom.cloud, please see HERE. All relevant information about NetSupport classroom.cloud and their approach to data protection, privacy and security can be found HERE. For further information regarding Smoothwall at Verulam, please contact the school directly. Contact information can be found HERE. To help navigate through the rapidly changing world of online safety, NetSupport and Smoothwall have created various guides which highlight key trends, how this impacts students and the best approaches for identifying and supporting vulnerable students. Smoothwall online safety guides can be found HERE. NetSupport’s online safety guide can be found HERE. What does classroom.cloud actually do? NetSupport classroom.cloud reads keystrokes on content searched for, and will raise alerts with the safeguarding team either immediately or within the console depending on the determined severity. This allows school’s to gain more visibility on children’s online activity within school. Will my child’s device be monitored outside of school? NetSuport classroom.cloud can only function and monitor when two conditions are in place, firstly the device has to be connected on the school network and within a set time frame, which is between 8am-4pm. The overriding control being the school network connection, without this, the solution cannot work. How can I tell my child’s device is not connected or being monitored? On the device, NetSupport classroom.cloud extension/app will indicate its status through the following colours and/or status information: Can my child’s camera on their device be accessed? NetSupport classroom.cloud does not have the function and/or ability to remotely access a device’s webcam. Who will have remote access to student devices and when? Access to the NetSupport admin console is limited to the AAT Director of IT, AAT Infrastructure Lead & AAT Safeguarding Lead. For each individual Trust school, access and management of NetSupport classroom.cloud will be the DSL and if required, members of the safeguarding team. Who can manage access and what mechanisms are in place to prevent abuse? Access management is overseen by the AAT Director of IT, AAT Infrastructure Lead and AAT Safeguarding Lead. The requirement for a school network connection alongside set school hours are set to ensure that devices are only monitored when students are within the school’s immediate care. The admin console has an audit log which produces reports on who has accessed the system and what changes have been made, including the activity that has taken place during the user’s session. For any questions or queries related to the management and setup of Smoothwall at Verulam, please contact the school directly. Contact information can be found HERE. How can parents and carers support their child’s safety online?
AAT Filtering and Monitoring
Online Safety Guide
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) – NetSupport classroom.cloud
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) – Smoothwall