E safety

E safety The school has a strong committment to e-safety. All children are taught how to keep themselves safe online or with new and emerging technologies through sessions with the Dorset Safer Schools and Communities team. These sessions are age appropriate and engaging. We also offer a parents' session so that Mums, Dads and Carers can find out how to encourage their children to make sensible and informed choices, from identity protection to whether the sites they visit are appropriate. Staff also undergo regular training.

The Headteacher is the e-safety champion for the school and attends regular meetings and updates with the Dorset Safer Schools and Communities team. Any incidences of online bullying must be reported to the Head who keeps a monitoring log. Sometimes it may be necessary to report serious incidences to the Police.

E safety Children are required to complete an acceptable use of the internet agreement whilst they are at St Mary's. This means they agree to using the internet and computer equipment properly, i.e. not contacting anyone without their teachers' permission or not bringing in files from home without prior permission. See acceptable use agreement. Staff are also required to complete an acceptable use agreement.

Cyberbullying

Did You Know?

1/3 of 9-19 year olds who go online at least once a week report having received unwanted (31%) or nasty (33%) comments via e-mail, chat, IM (instant messenger) or text message. Only 7% of parents/carers think their child have received such comments.
49% of children say that they have given out personal information; only 5% of parents/carers recognise that this may be the case.*
*Livingstone, S., & Bober, M. (2005). UK children go online. London: London School of Economics.

Bullying is not something that only happens in the real world any more. In the past, bullying may have occurred at school, in the playground or at a youth club, now it can happen on mobile phones, over email, in chat-rooms, on social networks and other websites. Cyberbullying can happen 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Cyberbullying is when one or more people try to tease, harass, threaten or embarrass another person using technology such as mobile phones or the Internet.

Children and young people can fall victim to cyberbullying, but they can also become the bully, or be drawn into cyberbullying without even realising it.

Even though cyberbullying cannot physically hurt someone – the effects can be devastating. Due to its 24/7 nature, escaping from it can be hard and victims can be left feeling very isolated, lonely, distressed, scared and vulnerable.

PREVENT

What is Prevent?

Prevent is about safeguarding people and communities from the threat of terrorism. Prevent is 1 of the 4 elements of CONTEST, the Government’s counter-terrorism strategy. It aims to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism.

The Prevent strategy:

Responds to the ideological challenge we face from terrorism and aspects of extremism, and the threat we face from those who promote these views;
Provides practical help to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism and ensure they are given appropriate advice and support; and
Works with a wide range of sectors (including education, criminal justice, faith, charities, online and health) where there are risks of radicalisation that we need to deal with.

Read here about how social media can expose a risk to radicalisation and terrorism.

Top Tips

Talk to your child about responsible online behaviour
Remind them that once a message is sent or a comment is posted online you cannot take it back.
Let them know that if something bothers them, makes them feel upset, sad or scared they can talk to you about it.

Taken from www.parentsprotect.co.uk

School has a robust and comprehensive policy on e-safety and safer social networking. Both of these policies can be found on the downloads page under policies. We also refer to e-safety in our anti-bullying policy.

Useful sites relating to E-Safety

The logo below will take you to the CEOP website which is a great place to visit if you would like to know more: www.thinkuknow.co.uk Here you can report online incidents. Just look for this button and click for advice.

Click below to read the E-safety champions newsletters from Dorset SSCT.