ESAFETY AT SCHOOL
We keep children eSafe at school both by using electronic protections and by teaching them how to stay safe online.
FILTERING AND MONITORING SYSTEMS
Internet access at school is filtered using blocklists provided by our Internet firewall provider (Sonicwall). These lists are based on those recommended by the UK Safer Internet Centre for Child Sexual Abuse Content, Terrorism Content, Adult Content and also Offensive Language. We regularly check that our systems are using these lists and we also review websites frequently visited from devices in school. Any inappropriate sites are added to an additional blocklist.
School devices, whether used on site or outside of school are monitored for inappropriate use using Smoothwall Monitor. This system monitors keyboard input and other activity and alerts safeguarding staff in school who then investigate these alerts.
ONLINE SAFETY HUB
All Trust schools, including ours now have free access for all parents/carers to an online safety hub provided by Smoothwall: https://russelleducationtrust.onlinesafetyhub.uk
This is a brand-new resource with lots of expert advice and guidance to help you manage your child’s safety online.
It includes information on the latest hot topics when it comes to keeping children safe, such as how to manage your child’s screen time, understand the latest gaming platforms, what they mean for your child’s safety and lots more.
Qustodio is part of Smoothwall and provide online filtering and monitoring services to parents/carers for your devices. Details of this and the online safety hub are in this document.
There is also a subscription version with additional features and that will manage even more devices. If you do subscribe, please use the discount code at the end of the linked file.
how to report harmful contents
STUDENT ONLINE ACTIVITY
Students work online within the protections of the filtering and monitoring systems above. They do have email accounts provided by Microsoft in order to access Teams and various online learning resources. The email accounts themselves are isolated from both sending and receiving outside of Russell Education Trust schools. Students may therefore only interact with other students and staff from the Trust through Microsoft Services and these interactions are monitored and can be logged.
During lessons and for homework, students may need to visit websites in order to undertake some learning activities. The websites planned for use are detailed on the curriculum pages of each subject. Occasionally teachers may ask students to visit other websites.
To supplement information in our newsletters and our parents' events we've collected together some guides for parents to a number of "current" apps and websites that students may be using.
We would also recommend using the 'Parent and Carer toolkit' available to download from Childnet here. The toolkit includes a lot of useful resources including a template for a 'family agreement'.