Staying safe on-line is a concern for all children and parents. We live in an age where technology is an integral part of life. With its use comes tremendous advantages but it also has its challenges.
Knowing the potential threats and how to deal with them are a skill set needed by everyone. At Ireby Church of England School we achieve this through our curriculum and through discussions with children. We encourage an open culture where children feel safe to discuss their on-line activity.
How we teach children On-line safety
At Ireby, children are taught on-line safety in a variety of ways. Every Autumn term, children are taught on-line safety as part of our computing curriculum. Click here to see our computing curriculum. It is also taught as part of our PSHE curriculum, during Internet Safety weeks and through assemblies. Our aim is to ensure that all children understand how to manager risk and keep themselves safe on-line. We are also part of Project Evolve, which gives us access to a wide range of resources and allows us to track the knowledge and understanding of all our children.
Supporting parents with On-line safety
Your children's interactions with the internet will develop as they grow and change. Keeping up with these changes can be daunting. To help you, we will be emailing out weekly internet safety newsletters, full of useful information and tips to keep your family safe online. We will also publish them here on our website and make sure that they are updated regularly to ensure information is current.
Filtering and Monitoring at Ireby
Ireby school provides a safe environment to learn and work, including when online. Filtering and monitoring are both important parts of safeguarding our pupils and staff from potentially harmful and inappropriate online material. We comply fully with the recommendations set out in the Government report: Meeting digital and technology standards in schools.
At Ireby, the Designated Safeguarding Lead (Mr John) is also responsible for the filtering and monitoring arrangements. Our on-line content is filtered and monitored by Cumberland County Council. As a school, we also use our own filtering and monitoring software called Lanschool. Lanschool allows us to monitor and control all children's online activity, review their browsing history and blocking potentially harmful sites. As a school we remain ever vigilant with children and staff having a clear process for reporting potential issues during school hours.
If parents have any concerns about their, or any other child's, on-line activities outside scjhool, then please contact Mr John as the school's Internet Safety officer, via the school email: office@ireby.cumbria.sch.uk.
On-line resources
The following on-line resources are utilised by pupils and staff at Ireby School to support their learning.
Children use the search engine 'Search Coach' on Microsoft Teams. This coaches the children, on a daily basis, on how to make safe internet searches and ensure that they only access material from trusted websites. It also gives teachers immediate 'insight' in to the words children use in their searches as well as a record of all websites visited.
This facility also enables staff to limit and monitor children's chat in Microsoft teams and keep all our children safe.
