Blog – Latest stories tagged 'internet_safety'

Encourage pupils to work together for a better internet with our annual competition

The next ‘Safer Internet Day’ will be the sixteenth edition of the event and will take place worldwide on Tuesday 5th February 2019.

The theme for 'Safer Internet Day 2019' will be ‘Together for a better internet’.

The day aims to inspire young people to use technology responsibly, respectfully, critically and creatively. The theme encourages us to consider what we do online, such as exploring the internet and thinking about how it works, considering where the information comes from and who owns it, being responsible for our own activity in the digital space and taking control of our own online lives.

SID2019 Competition - NOW CLOSED

To celebrate the fantastic work being done through Safer Internet Day activities around the world, we are delighted to be running our annual competition for schools. To get involved, all your pupils have to do is complete the grid as shown below and then tweet their entries from the school Twitter account.

The grid template can be downloaded as part of our free Safer Internet Day assembly available to all members (if you are not already a member, you can join our free membership here), or you can create your own. This can be in simple text, an image or a video. As long as it can be Tweeted and includes @SafeguardingSGE in the message.

To submit your school entries:

1) Simply Tweet your entries including the @SafeguardingSGE from your school Twitter account,
or
2) Submit your entries by email to competition@safeguardingessentials.com and we will Tweet it on your behalf

Entry is open now and schools can enter as many tips as they wish. All entries must be received before midnight on February 1st 2019 to be included in the competition. Please see the competition terms here.

Winners

The winners of our 2019 competition are:

Best Primary School
This entry was submitted by Cwm Glas Primary School in Swansea. Overseeing the project, Claire Howells from the school added "The boys really enjoyed the challenge of making a poster and used the example you provided as a template to build on. They took on board all the information they were given. They even created a background on a painting program so they knew it wasn’t a copyright image. They have been very excited for today to find out the competition winner!"

Best Secondary School
The winner in the secondary school category were the Digital Leaders from Castleford Academy.

Their winning entry can be viewed on Twitter here.

Mr Whitworth from Castleford Academy commented "Digital Leaders is something that we have been slowly developing over the past 12months. Giving pupils more ownership of Digital technologies and its development in the school. We are always on the look out for projects to get involved in. This one is particularly important to us as a school. We had a number of in-depth discussions about what our top tips would be. All pupils enjoyed the involvement in the project and it has been rolled out across the school as part of our Safer Internet Day (week) campaign."

Winning schools each receive one years free membership to Safeguarding Essentials.

Highly Commended

We would like to make a special mention St Wolstans Community School. The pupils there put in a great deal of preparation and organisation to come up with an e-safety song. You can view their video on the school Facebook page

Safeguarding Essentials, Safer Internet Day Competition Terms 2019

This competition is open to schools and youth organisations in the UK and schools overseas. You do not have to be a member of Safeguarding Essentials or E-safety Support to enter.

Entries must be received by midnight on Friday 1st February 2019 to be entered into the competition.

Each entry must be a series of internet safety tips as indicated on the information provided and must be a Tweet from a school Twitter account (this can be text, image or video) and include @SafeguardingSGE in the Tweet to be valid. Entries can also be submitted via email to competition@safeguardingessentials.com. Entries must be submitted by a member of school staff and not by the pupils

By submitting an entry, you agree for the Tweet to be used on the Safeguarding Essentials website as well as on social media platforms. Your school name (but no names of staff of pupils) may also be included on these platforms.

There are 2 categories, Best Primary School Entry, Best Secondary School Entry.

A winner will be chosen from each category and announced on 5th February 2019 - Safer Internet Day. If you are a winner, we will endeavour to contact you by phone and email on the same day prior to announcement. However, if we are unable to contact you, we will still announce the winning entries on the 5th February.

If you are chosen as a winner, you will be given 1 years free membership to Safeguarding Essentials for your school. If you are already a member, the free year will be added to the end of your current membership period. Alternatively, you may choose to nominate another school to receive your prize.

For winner’s details please send an email to: competition@safeguardingessentials.com within 28 days of the closing date.

By entering the competition, entrants agree to be bound by the rules and by any other requirements set out in promotional material.

Good Luck!

Only 68% of schools reported that all staff are receiving regular e-safety training and updates.

In 2012, Ofsted released their inspecting e-safety briefing, placing an emphasis on educating young people about staying safe online, while providing a safe environment in which to explore the web.

In the six years that have followed, a great deal has changed, not least the available technology and indeed how young people are connecting to the virtual and online world.

From a school perspective, the greatest change has come in the form of responsibility. Gone are the days when e-safety was considered the domain of the IT teacher – now the responsibility lies with the senior management team in the form of a designated safeguarding lead.

To that end, e-safety is no-longer a separate entity but is incorporated in the DfE guidance relating to the wider safeguarding issues, primarily set out the in the Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance, which was updated at the beginning of September.

One of the key elements of the guidance is that of staff training, with the KCSIE stating that:

Governing bodies and proprietors should ensure that all staff undergo safeguarding and child protection training (including online safety) at induction. The training should be regularly updated.
And
In addition, all staff should receive regular safeguarding and child protection updates (for example, via email, e-bulletins, staff meetings) as required, and at least annually, to provide them with relevant skills and knowledge to safeguard children effectively.

To underline this requirement the “Inspecting safeguarding in early years, education and skills settings” Ofsted guidance issued earlier this month advises inspections to include evidence that:

staff, leaders, governors and supervisory bodies (where appropriate) and volunteers receive appropriate training on safeguarding at induction, that is updated regularly.

However, it seems that many schools are currently not providing adequate staff training on internet safety. According to figures extracted from the E-safety Support e-safety checklist, in the 2017/18 academic year, only 67.8% of users who logged progress in this area reported that they were fulfilling this requirement.

In addition, less than half (48.2%) of governing bodies were considered to be is involved the e-safety policy and practice within schools, while only 59% of users reported having an effective e-safety policy in place.

With the safeguarding remit ever widening, it’s not hard to understand why some schools may not be meeting the DfE requirements for e-safety – budgets, time and the expanding areas of risk which need to be considered make the safeguarding arena a challenging one to keep up with. However, we must remember that “Early years settings, schools, and further education and skills institutions should be safe environments where children (that is, everyone under the age of 18), learners and vulnerable adults can learn and develop” and having trained staff is essential to ensuring this is the case.

Online e-safety training available from Safeguarding Essentials

Our online training courses are simple to distribute and monitor. They are a cost effective way to make sure your whole school community receives regular up-to-date training. With no 'per-user' costs, you can distribute the training to as many staff, parents, governors and pupils as you need and can repeat the training as often as necessary.

There are currently 13 online training courses for staff covering a range of safeguarding topics - a full list of courses can be viewed here

Review your e-safety provision with our interactive online checklist

The statistics quoted are taken from our interactive online e-safety checklist, which is available to all Safeguarding Essentials members. The 9 point checklist gives you an outline of the necessary action or procedure that needs to take place in your school, with references to additional information and support if you need them. Find out more

Subsidised memberships available

Since 2013, we have been supporting schools across the UK and beyond to deliver consistent, outstanding practice in online safety. Recently, we have added resources to our service to address wider safeguarding requirements. To date, our online training has been completed over 130,000 times.

However, we recognise that some of the schools who need the greatest support are those with the least resource. That’s why we have teamed up with our partners at Friendly WiFi to offer subsidised membership to those most in need - up to 100% discounts are available to qualifying schools. Discover your discount now!