Online Safety

Online safety is an important part of keeping our school community safe. Our network is fully monitored and Internet access is filtered to different levels based on age and courses undertaken. However, student access on personal devices and at home is not always filtered to the same level and there has to be a careful ever-changing balance between freedom and monitoring.

Students

We encourage students to have dialogue with their parents. The school has a range of support systems in place to provide additional help, advice and guidance where applicable. Students are taught that if they or another is in immediate danger to dial 999 and that the general police contact number is 111. They are aware that they can also talk to Childline 0800 1111; The Samaritans on 116 123 or report incidents to CEOP

At Sancroft, we have a comprehensive online safety scheme embedded across the curriculum. We use the age appropriate resources on www.thinkuknow.co.uk which is produced by CEOP to support this. ThinkUKnow also offers home e-learning activities that are targeted at different year groups.

Parents

Protecting Children’s Privacy Online – a guide for parents, carers and educators – please click here to view

The video is a great introduction to e-safety and is produce by CEOP.  In addition to the online channel with a large number of videos and other resources that we use as part of our teaching.

To access additional videos produced by CEOP Click here

Please click here for an online safety guide for parents and carers that we hope you will find both informative and useful. The guide provides an overview (although not exhaustive) and summary of current ‘apps’ that are available online. 

Online Safety is taught through our curriculum at sancroft and with your support we hope we can continue to guide and protect all members of the school community to make appropriate choices when accessing such sites.   

We have provided a list of the key websites that we feel you will find useful: 

Cybercrime

Cybercrime is often carried out by large criminal gangs which can be involved with trafficking of drugs and people. Cybercrime is part of our syllabus in Computer Science at KS3 and is also a key part of the GCSE Computer Science curriculum.
However, students can be perpetrators of cybercrime, sometimes unwittingly.

Norfolk Constabulary have further information on their website regarding avoiding Cybercrime.

Support

We would advocate an open and honest dialogue with your child regarding the risks online. The school is here to support parents as well. We will endeavour to answer the questions we are able to and refer you to the partners that support us, if a more definitive answer is required. We have no allegiance to any product or service for home use, so are unable to make recommendations. Mobile phone providers, tablets, operating systems and ISPs often provide their own level of filtering and enquiries need to be made direct to the support network for the device or service.

To support parents and carers, we have held online awareness evenings. This has included external speakers.  This is something we are committed to and will continue to run. If there is demand for further evenings or on particular online safety topics, then please make the school aware and we will aim to support you. 

Online Safety Curriculum

Online safety relates to the safe use of technology and the internet. It also covers the training of children to ensure they know how to act safely online. The online sphere has become an integral part of our and our students’ lives. A world has opened up which offers many positive opportunities but also potential personal risks. It is therefore important that our students are taught of the way in which they can use and access online material, the risks of going online and how to use the Internet safely and responsibly. As such, we provide the following learning opportunities as part of curricular delivery during a student’s time with us to ensure they are equipped with the understanding of the opportunities and risks associated with being a young digital native. Each element listed includes raising awareness and the teaching of key issues relating to staying safe online. Steps to report concerns via Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) are also shared with students during the academic year and is included in our safeguarding training with staff. 

Norfolk Constabulary lead age-appropriate e-safety assemblies for every year group throughout the academic year, as per below programme.

As part of wider school life, we also have processes which students are familiar with – and the reasons why we have these in place – such as web content filtering and monitoring of devices and school computers via Securus and ABTutor.