Online Safety

Online Safety at Greensward 

The ways in which young people use digital technologies to learn and socialise expands rapidly at this stage of their school life. At Greensward Academy we recognise the benefits and risks this poses to students in both the physical and the digital world.

Each academic year, we provide the following online safety learning opportunities to foster a culture of responsibility and personal safety in the digital world amongst our students:

• An introduction to staying safe online for Year 7s in their first half term at Greensward through their ICT lessons.

• Personal and online safety workshops for Year 8 and 9 students.

• As part of the Tutor, assembly programme and PSHEE lessons students engage in topics such as sharing content safely, engaging with others responsibly, digital footprints and personal safety.

Schools and colleges should provide a safe environment to learn and work, including when online. Filtering and monitoring are both important parts of safeguarding pupils and staff from potentially harmful and inappropriate online material Keeping Children safe in Education 2023 (DFE)

Filtering systems: block access to harmful sites and content.

Monitoring systems: identify when a user accesses or searches for certain types of harmful content on school and college devices (it doesn’t stop someone accessing it). The school is then alerted to any concerning content so they can intervene and respond.

Whilst students and staff are signed into the shared google platform their devices are constantly monitored. This includes both in and out of school.

The Principal/DSL has lead responsibility for safeguarding and online safety which should include

• Filtering and monitoring reports

• Safeguarding concerns

• Checks to filtering and monitoring systems 

All staff have been trained on how to report safeguarding and technical concerns, such as if:  

• They witness or suspect unsuitable material has been accessed 

• They are able to access unsuitable material  

• They are teaching topics that could create unusual activity on the filtering logs 

• There is a failure in the software or an abuse of the system 

• There are perceived unreasonable restrictions that affect teaching and learning or administrative tasks 

• They notice abbreviations or misspellings that allow access to restricted material

Parents are provided with regular online safety updates via the Parents newsletter, website and curriculum evenings.