Online Safety / E-Safety
At The Adeyfield Academy, we are committed to ensuring the safety of all of our students at all times. With the advent and rise of technology, it is of paramount importance that we make both parents / carers and students are aware of potential online dangers and where they can find support.
Students Chromebooks are also monitored and content is filtered to ensure access is for educational purposes only. This is to ensure that students are able to become confident digital citizens and are able to use the internet for education and work in later life.
Online safety, often referred to as Internet or E-Safety, is about how you can stay safe whilst online. It encompasses all technological devices which have access to the Internet, ranging from mobile phones to games consoles.
What are we doing to keep students safe at Adeyfield?
- Annual Online Safety 'Parent Pit Stop' evening for parents/carers
- Comprehensive PSHCE programme that regularly addresses online safety
- Regular awareness in ICT/Computing lessons
- Regular assemblies
- Form Group discussions
- E-safety posters around the school outlining guidance for e-safety and cyberbullying
- Regular reminders to report any behaviour of concern
- Fully informed and sympathetic staff community
- Extremely strong firewalls and online protection
- User agreements, students and staff are required to sign
- Use of consequence system to give a firm message to those who abuse social media, particularly to be unpleasant
- 1:1 conversations with students who abuse social media or put themselves at risk
We always encourage students to come and tell us if something on the internet has upset them and we hope they continue to do so but we would rather they were not upset at all and we regularly speak to all year groups about making sensible choices about their use of the internet.
If you have any worries, concerns or questions about your child and their online safety, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Advice and Guidance about online safety
Children and young people spend an average of 12 hours a week online and it becomes part of their routine early on in life. Whether it’s email, gaming, social media, searches, YouTube, they’re on it constantly. More and more we are seeing that children’s misuse of the internet can be to the detriment of their safety, welfare and happiness.
The sites/apps that students are currently using include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Quoetov, Meowchat, Whatsapp, Askfm, Oovoo, Kik, Yik Yak and there are hundreds more. To have a social networking account a person should be 14 or over. Research done by the NSPCC highlights that the damage done to the well being of children aged 11 and 12 years, by social media, is far more acute as they do not have the emotional maturity to cope with the issues that arise. All internet sites that children are using should have a CEOP – report abuse button. If it doesn’t, it isn’t safe. In particular, the use of internet sites/ apps that are used to make others feel unhappy or can lead to children viewing images that are inappropriate should be avoided.
Some sites/apps are chat rooms and social networking sites. Others, are for the display of pictures and messages. All are open to public forum and therefore have an element of danger, especially chat room and social networking sites where children can talk to people from anywhere in the world who may not be who they say they are. Many of the sites/apps have location settings, which if not disabled, can allow another person to see exactly where you are. This coupled with the personal information which many children share online can be very dangerous. SnapMaps is the most recent of these that actively encourages children to post details and reveal their locations to others.
All can be used in negative way to upset others. Examples include, posting images of events other children were excluded from or posting comments about people with pictures on Snapchat, which only lasts a short time on Snapchat but can be screen shot and used elsewhere. Askfm and a new site called Sarahah are particularly worrying as they can be anonymous and therefore people can post/ask unpleasant and questions and can get replies without the victim knowing who it is. The easiest way to avoid this is to not look at these sites and to stop your daughter/son accessing them.
In order to be able to support your child in addressing some of the issues faced when using social media and the internet, we have found the following links to be helpful:
Online safety
- Internet matters (support for parents and carers to keep their children safe online)
- KIDSONLINEWORLD.COM (Outlines the current platforms and apps popular with children)
- LGfL (support for parents and carers to keep their children safe online)
- NSPCC Keeping Children Safe Online
- Parent info (support for parents and carers to keep their children safe online)
- Safer Internet Parent Guide
- Supporting young People Online
- The parents' guide to teaching your teen online safety. (support for parents and carers to keep their children safe online)
- Thinkyouknow (advice from the National Crime Agency to stay safe online)
- Vodaphone Digital Parenting
Cyberbullying - The issues
Social Media - Safer security settings:
- Connect Safely Instagram Guide
- Connect Safely Snapchat Parents' guide
- Facebook Help for Privacy Settings
- Sarahah Privacy Settings
- Whatsapp Privacy Settings
Links to the student resources can be found here:
CEOP
The National Crime Agency's (NCA) CEOP Command (formerly the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre) works with child protection partners across the UK and overseas to identify the main threats to children and coordinates activity against these threats. Their website contains further details about how to keep your child safe online and how to report concerns you may have regarding inappropriate activity online
Are you worried about online sexual abuse or the way someone has been communicating with you online? Click below to utilise the CEOP facility to tell the police about potential harm.
