e- safety

Welcome to my blog page...  

...which has been set up to show and share information gained from Primary PGCE ICT sessions along with additional research.

The first task set was the exploration of esafety (safe and responsible use of the internet) in schools.

e-safety in schools
In schools, it is the responsibility of the staff, to ensure that e-safety is carried out at all times in children's usage of the internet. Staff must be aware of the materials being viewed by the children at all times and measures should be taken to ensure that all material is appropriate. Such procedures would help to avoid risks in the following areas:


Content - sexual, racist, violent unreliable/ bigoted i.e. safety of children’s minds
Commerce - scams, phishing and pharming, downloads which steal information from users
Contact - via interactive technologies – IM, chat, multiplayer games
Culture – bullying


Top tips for parents/ guardians, school governers and community use
There are various different websites which inform and educate about e-safety, and measures that can be taken. A few are listed below and more can be found on the following websites:



  
http://www.esafeeducation.co.uk/forhome.php?lv1=top_tips

http://www.internetsafety101.org/InternetSafetyrules.htm 

• Explain to the child that they should never give out personal details. Help them to understand how little pieces of information can be put together to show a large portion of their personal life.
• Make the children aware that they need to think carefuly about the information and pictures they load onto their profiles.
• Tell the child not to open files that are from people they don't know - they shouldn't talk to strangers on the street and neither should they on the internet.
• Remind children that spam, junk emails and texts should not be believed and they should not reply to them or use them.
• The internet is not a private space so explain to children about responsible behaviour as they would do in person.

Below is a video of how a primary school have carried out e-safety procedures.

School rules about use of photos of children on school website
To consider and manage the following risks:

• Asking for parental permission to cover use of photographs before using images of pupils.
• Consider using group photos rather than full-face photos of individual children.
• Keeping names and images separate (e.g. if pupil is names, avoid using their photograph)

More rules as well as general useful information can be found on the following website:
http://www.deni.gov.uk/index/13-health-safety/21-schools-internet-policy-pg-2.htm