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eSafety in School

At St Mary’s our pupils are regularly exposed to online safety teaching. This starts with our RSE/ PSHE then our KS1 & Ks2 children are taught eSafety through our  Through this teaching, pupils know how to keep themselves safe online and what to do if they see something that they don’t like online or if they don’t feel safe.
We also have Internet Safety days and assemblies throughout the year.

Filtering and Monitoring

In school we have two electronic safeguards to prevent pupils from stumbling onto inappropriate information and to inform DSLs about any concerns:
  • RM Safety Net provides web filtering
  • Smoothwall Monitor which monitors and captures user activity as it happens, automatically sending potential risks through to our DSL team.

eSafety Information for Parents and Carers

Children and young people spend a lot of time online – it can be a great way for them to socialise, explore and have fun. But children do also face risks like cyber bulling, seeing content that’s inappropriate or being groomed.

Offenders are where the children Are!

One of the fundamental and most important messages within safeguarding training (particularly online safety) is ‘offenders are where the children are.’ Although this may sound obvious, the tactics that offenders use are not always obvious. We all know that criminals will use a variety of social engineering tactics, but to be able to use those tactics there has to be some form of engagement, which requires communications features. So whether that is messaging on Snapchat or chatting within Roblox, if there is a communication feature there is a risk to any child or young person. You may be aware of Spotify, the globally popular music streaming service. Spotify doesn’t have the traditional messaging features but THIS news article shows how criminals will use any means possible to coerce and exploit children and young people.

Stay safe

There are ways that you can keep children and young people safe:

Talking to your child is one of the best ways to keep them safe. You can also use parental controls on social networks, online games and browsers and on both hardware and software that can filter or monitor what your child can see.

Preventing your children from using the internet or mobile phones won’t keep them safe in the long run, so it’s important to have conversations that help your child understand how to stay safe and what to do if they ever feel scared or uncomfortable.

Here are a few tips on how to keep them safe

  1. Have the conversation early and often
  2. Explore online together
  3. Know who your child is talking to online
  4. Set rules and agree boundaries
  5. Make sure that content is age-appropriate
  6. Use parental controls to filter, restrict, monitor or report content
  7. Check they know how to use privacy settings and reporting tools

Game Finder

Finding games for children which are appropriate for their age, which work on the devices the children use and the children will actually enjoy playing can be a minefield, particularly when parents are being bombarded with the ‘but everyone else is playing this game’ guilt trip. Game Finder is a new (free) service available from Taming Gaming which walks parents through various aspects, such as how old is your child? What devices do they have? What types of games do they like to play? And then gives a list of recommendations of suitable games.You can find Game Finder HERE.

Online Safety Newsletters

Please click on the links below to access our online safety newsletter

Online Safety Newsletter Primary November 2023_

Online Safety Newsletter Primary October 2023_

eSafety

e-safety Policy