Online Safety
We keep your child safe online using Durham County Council filtering & Impero
Internet safety software
E-learning, digital communication, social media, cloud based applications – it’s amazing how quickly new technology becomes commonplace across education. But amidst all the hype, and in the race to make the most of these new opportunities, let’s not forget the fundamental safety issues and exposure to risk that the online environment presents.
Viewing unsuitable content, giving out personal information, accessing indecent images, cyberbullying, grooming, identity theft, radicalisation – this list goes on, and we’ve all heard the horror stories. It’s essential that, in order to support safe online learning, educational establishments have a good e-safety policy in place, and the right tools to enforce internet safety. Safeguarding children in schools is one of today’s biggest challenges. With more internet enabled devices being used across the education sector than ever before, e-safety in schools is not only key to reducing risk, it’s also an Ofsted requirement.
The internet safety software feature in Impero Education Pro is designed to provide e-safety in schools and protect students from the risks of online working. With key word detection and the use of blocks and filters, acceptable boundaries can be imposed. Real-time alerts and close monitoring will highlight violations, usually proving enough of a deterrent to prevent these instances occurring in the first place.
Safeguarding children in education is critical and basic filtering is no longer sufficient when it comes to online safety for kids. Simply blocking internet access not only closes off the opportunity to gain access to valuable learning resources, it also removes the ability to identify vulnerable individuals. Impero Education Pro’s e-safety functionality promotes a monitored approach, in line with Ofsted recommendations, in order to educate young people and promote safer behaviour online, both in and out of school.
Impero Education Pro internet safety software features:
- prevent access to unsuitable sites
- prevent unauthorised use of proxy sites
- enforce acceptable usage policy
- create key word libraries for real-time detection
- monitor using specialist built-in key word libraries
- determine potential risk through key word glossaries with explanations
- create different policies depending on severity
- capture time stamped screen shots of every violation
- add screenshots to logviewer report
- record on-screen activity and specify recording length to capture misuse
- export violations with details and image to PDF
- evidence misconduct from a centralised log to support disciplinary action
- alert the relevant authority when rules are violated
- apply policies and filters to laptops when disconnected from the network
- log and monitor all web activity
- enable students to anonymously report concerns using the Confide system
- real-time monitoring of mobile devices including iPads and Chromebooks
For further information click here.
YouTube – Advice for Parents (E-Safety)
Youtube Risks – Uploading Video
Many children spend a lot of time watching vloggers (Video Log) such as Zoella. (Zoella can have over 3 million hits on her uploads!)
Some children chose to emulate these Vloggers, and in doing so without careful thought can leave themselves open to bullying or online grooming by revealing personal details and making videos and comments available to anyone.
This is not illegal but the minimum age to create a Youtube account is 13. Having an account for a younger child breaks the terms and conditions of the site. It is not possible to upload videos without creating an account.
The following links provide additional information for parents and teachers :-
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2802272?hl=en-GB&ref_topic=2803240 and
http://www.saferinternet.org.uk/safety-tools/youtube
Extract from Youtube Website
Parent resources
We understand that parents and guardians sometimes have questions about children’s behaviour online. We’ve put together some tools and resources to help you manage your family’s experience on YouTube.
What age does my child need to be to use YouTube?
In order to create a YouTube account, you must confirm that you’re at least 13 years old. If a video is flagged and we find that the uploader inaccurately stated their age during the account creation process, we will terminate their account.
Safeguarding – Parent Online Safety
The Lucy Faithfull foundation have produced a booklet which is very useful for parents who have had online difficulties with their child.
The booklet covers three main areas:
- My child has access pornography.
- My child has either sent or received inappropriate images
- My child is in trouble with the police for something on-line.
The resources can be accessed here or by clicking the below link(s).
The use of social media to encourage travel to Syria and Iraq.
The image below links to a new home office and DFE document on what action schools and parents should take to prevent travel to Syria and Iraq.
BBC News – ‘Sexting’ teens risk depression
Cyberbullying and “sexting” by young people can lead to depression in later life, warns a psychiatrist.
Natasha Bijlani, from the Priory Hospital, Roehampton, says she expects to see a rise in teens and adults self-harming because of exposure to online and digital abuse.
She says children often fear reporting abuse which can lead to anxiety, depression and stress in adulthood.
The NSPCC says children need help “as early as possible”.
Sharing images
“Sexting”, when teenagers share explicit photos of themselves with their peers, is seen by some as the “new courtship”, she says.
But together with online bullying it can have disastrous consequences, says Dr Bijlani: “The long-term effects of bullying can be prolonged and pervasive.
“Much more focus needs to be given on how best to educate young people about the risks of sending compromising images, and communicating with unknown others online.”
She says sexting “seems to have become endemic and we are not sure of the long-term consequences”.
‘Brink of despair’
Dr Bijlani draws on research that suggests depression and anxiety affect more children than ever before.
According to data from the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC), emergency admissions for psychiatric conditions rose to 17,278 in 2014, double the number four years previously.
There were 15,668 admissions of young women aged 15 to 19 for cutting, burning or harming themselves compared with 9,255 admissions in 2004.
Recent figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed one in five 16- to 24-year-olds had symptoms of depression, anxiety or stress.
The Priory Group, which offers mental health services to children and adults, has seen a rise of 12- to 17-year-olds treated for serious depression or anxiety issues, from 178 in 2010 to 262 in 2014.
These young people, she says, would have been the first users of social media.
Peter Wanless from the NSPCC said: “A rising number of children contact ChildLine because they have mental health issues and just as worrying is the lack of executive services to help them.
“We know that some children who have been abused, bullied or relentlessly harassed to send sexual images of themselves sometimes resort to self-harming and others are having their futures jeopardised by depression.
“Whatever the reason, we must tackle the root causes and invest in support that helps them as early as possible.
“If we ignore this problem, we risk leaving a generation on the brink of despair.”
Do you know who your children are talking to online?
A post from Head of Online Safety at NSPCC:
Chances are that if you have a child approaching their ‘tweens’ they will soon be clamouring for a) a mobile phone b) a social media account c) a games console – all of which could enable them to chat to complete strangers anywhere in the world.
The days of a family PC in the corner of the living room are long gone. Most of us carry the internet in our pockets these days so it’s not surprising that our children want the same easy access. And once children get to nine or 10 years old they are in any case eager to go online and chat to their friends without a parent watching over their shoulder.
However, according to Ofcom, one in ten children aged 8-11 who go online say they have seen something in the past year that was worrying, nasty or offensive.
We all want to keep children safe online and many parents will at some point take action, like installing filters on their home broadband to stop children seeing unsuitable material. But filters don’t protect children from strangers contacting them through social media, mobile apps, or online games.
The NSPCC wants to see all online accounts for under-16s set up to block messages from strangers, prevent users making their location or contact details public, set profiles as private by default on sign-up, and alert children to the risks if they choose make their profile public.
Until these steps are taken by industry we all have to be extra vigilant about children’s safety. So it’s essential to have regular chats with your children about what to do to keep themselves safe, and stress that it’s ok to come to you for help.
The good news is that lots of parents are talking to children about online safety – since the NSPCC launched its latest online safety campaign in January around 400,000 parents have spoken with their children about the issue.
However, we’re still concerned that some parents are missing out vital topics when they talk to their children about staying safe online.
For example, children have told us they want parents to talk about how to manage apps that track your location, but only one in five parents say they’ve covered this in online safety conversations.
And if parents aren’t talking to children about things like location or privacy settings it can leave them at risk of online grooming. We’ve seen horrendous cases where offenders take a scattergun approach, targeting hundreds of children at a time online, often posing as another young person.
So we want all parents to make sure their online knowledge is up to date by checking out our updated Net Aware guide, published this week.
Among 12 sites that have now been added to the guide are Tapatalk and Pheed, which many parents may not be familiar with, plus well-known games like Call of Duty that allows users to chat online.
The guide now covers a total of 60 social networking sites, apps and games popular with children and is free to access at www.net-aware.org.uk
The digital world is here to stay and it’s our job to make sure the next generation take their first steps online safely; aware of the risks, but confident about how to get where they want to be, just as our parents once taught us how to cross the road.
Follow Claire Lilley on Twitter: www.twitter.com/MsClaireLilley