Blog – Latest stories tagged 'e-safety'

Early last year, at a Network Managers Course, I came across the term ‘Digital Leader’. It was used by the speaker Robert Bashforth in reference to projects started by Chris Mayoh of the YHGfL. He used the term to describe one way of raising the profile of e-safeguarding issues in schools by developing a team of students to get involved and work in doing the job with you.

Obviously, they would have to have an interest in the issues in the first place, but then have to go on to gain the knowledge required before they are actually able to support their peers and also the staff in all matters of e-safety. They also talked about these students as helping to ‘push’ and also support digital initiatives to their peers and teachers as specialist leaders in using technology in the classroom environment.

Well it all sounded like a good idea, but then I could not really see what the students themselves might get out of the process and where their motivation would come from to volunteer to do this. Therefore, I asked Robert and others over the next few days and did a bit of ‘Googling’ and saw that actually the ‘Digital Leader’ projects that were already happening in little pockets here and there around the country, seemed quite a viable proposition. I researched some other areas where having a ‘Digital Leader’ type of student might prove of benefit around school in issues that were generally related to computing and computer use. I also started to realise where the students involved might benefit from being involved and that it might actually appeal to and interest a few of our kids very much indeed.

We just happened to have bought around 100 iPads in school and a couple of staff went on courses to learn how to get the most of our ‘new’ technologies. Staff needed to learn about getting away from the traditional computer suite or laptop trolley scenarios in school, particularly when not specifically teaching IT. However, any expertise did not seem to be being spread around school effectively and we seemed to be stalling a little.

Education news came out last year saying that, specifically in IT courses, Mr Gove, (the Education Minister), would rather have IT courses that concentrate more on teaching ‘Computing’, (programming and more ‘under the bonnet’ technology), as an alternative to the more traditional Information and Communication Technology (ICT). It is a fact that as a nation, we are already falling short of people coming out of education who can fill these types of technical computing jobs.

Well it so happened that the Head of the IT Department had just bought a few Raspberry Pi computers with the aim of maybe setting up a little school club. He wanted to attempt at getting some basic coding into the curriculum, so here was an opportunity maybe to start teaching students to get interested in computer coding and some control projects too.

And so, at our annual Activities Fair, the Digital Leaders project began.

At E-safety Support, we will be following the Digital Leaders project to share their ideas and solutions they find to e-safety issues in their school. If you would like to share your school's experiences, please email tinae@e-safetysupport.com

GNRN? PAW? Mean anything to you? These are acronyms or text language being used to facilitate the teen pastime of 'sexting'; it is currently estimated that at least 39% of teens are doing it. But it's not just all about the language; the sending of sexually suggestive pictures via phones, as we all know, is also a big problem in schools where photos become viral at the touch of a button. Before the sender knows it, the whole school can see them and teachers are left trying to ascertain who’s to blame and whether to involve outside agencies.

As educators, we are obliged to make intricacies of the law such as the possession and usage of images clear for our students. During my time teaching on workshops about this subject I frequently hold a class questionnaire on common scenarios; my observations are that on nearly all counts adolescents do not have a good handle on the law in this area. Knowing the law helps students make informed decisions and can make the difference in their behaviour; you can see ‘lightbulb’ moments when things are clarified and the realisation that something that can start of as ‘a bit of fun’ can actually be a prosecutable offence. A good example of this is when a male Year 10 student took some pictures for fun of another boy whilst getting changed for P.E, he then sent it to the rest of the class, he was completely aghast to know that his actions could be seen as distribution of indecent images of a person under 18.

Cyber bullying is still prevalent, being the medium of choice for many bullies who enjoy the power of being able to subject victims to nasty texts 24/7. I imagine for the victim it feels like a mixture of stalking and bullying, unable to escape the contact and not knowing in some cases who is doing it. It can be a challenge to reach the conscience of young people at times; they are still honing empathy skills and perhaps lack the maturity to see the consequences of their actions. This is where pre-planned lessons can really help; with these plans you can use real life stories as examples of the cause and effect of certain actions. Students can then relate to this, helping them see the ramifications of their behaviour.

Furthermore, sharp increases are being reported by CEOP in paedophiles’ targeting youngsters online to ‘groom’ them as a way of getting them to pass photos and take part in sexual talk through social networking sites. Sex offenders may be finding it easier to gain gratification this way, perhaps with less risk of being caught? Yet another sign of the times is that schools are having to shoulder the responsibility of warning students against such risks.

Complex issues require a head on approach; the E-safety Support assemblies and lesson plans provide an excellent opportunity to get the message across quickly and effectively to a large number of students. Many benefits are also seen in delivering to specific classes and year groups or targeted students identified as being vulnerable, acting as an early intervention strategy. The PowerPoints provided here really make this easy and problem free; the prescriptive nature of the assembly plan means that perhaps less experienced colleagues can gain confidence and feel comfortable giving information on this subject. It also makes the law surrounding this complex subject much clearer, which can only serve to act as a deterrent or at best a second thought before pressing send.

NB: text acronyms from above; GNRN = get naked right now and PAW = parents are watching

If you have any thoughts on this topic, we would love to hear from you. Please contact us using the form below.

This is the second in a series of blog posts focusing on Ofsted’s e-safety framework, which was first briefed to it’s inspectors in September 2012 and has had a number of amendments since then, the latest of which was published in January 2014.

In the last post, we concentrated on the large first section of the framework document, entitled ‘Whole School Consistent Approach’. In this article, we will look at the sections focusing on ‘Robust and Integrated Reporting Routines’ and ‘Staff’.

Robust and Integrated Reporting Routines

This section of the Ofsted e-safety framework focuses on schools’ online reporting procedures, emphasising that the whole school community should have a full and clear understanding about the processes available to them for the reporting of e-safety issues.

This can be demonstrated by:

Information on indicators that Ofsted will be looking out for that will identify good or outstanding practice can be found here.

Staff

In this area of the framework Ofsted’s focus is targeted at the training teaching and non-teaching staff is receiving with regard to e-safety and whether this is regular and up-to-date. Also, whether at least one member of staff, within the school, has received accredited training, for example CEOP or EPICT.

This can be demonstrated by:

These are just some suggestions on how you may develop your e-safety provision. If you would like to share your thoughts on implementing e-safety policy and practice in your school, we would love to hear from you. Please use the comments form below.

Further ideas on how to demonstrate key features of good and outstanding practice will be brought to you in future articles.