Online Safety

Using the internet safely

Using the internet has become a really fun way of keeping in touch with friends and family.

There are lots of ways of doing this including IM, chat rooms, and through playing games and writing blogs. Mobile phones and tablets are really popular and easy to use. There are so many things you can do on mobile phones that you couldn’t do only a year or so ago!

We have added some links on this page which help you and your child to understand about how to use the internet and mobile phones safely. 

The use of these new technologies can put young children at risk. Some of the dangers they may face include:

• Access to illegal, harmful or inappropriate images or other content
• Unauthorised access to / loss of / sharing of personal information
• The risk of being subject to grooming by those with whom they make contact on the internet.
• The sharing / distribution of personal images without an individual's consent or knowledge
• Inappropriate communication / contact with others, including strangers
  Cyber-bullying
• Access to unsuitable video / internet games
• An inability to evaluate the quality, accuracy and relevance of information on the internet
• Plagiarism and copyright infringement
• Illegal downloading of music or video files
• The potential for excessive use which may impact on the social and emotional development and learning of the young person

As with all other risks, it is impossible to eliminate them completely. It is therefore essential, through good educational provision, to build pupils’ resilience to the risks to which they may be exposed, so that they have the confidence and skills to face and deal with these risks. At Grosvenor Road Primary School, e-safety is a part of the curriculum.

 Filtering and monitoring in school

The latest update to the statutory guidance Keeping Children Safe in Education 2023 (‘KCSIE 2023’) now includes reference to the DfE’s filtering and monitoring standards. The standards, which were published on 29 March 2023, are intended to support schools to meet their duty and to have appropriate/effective filtering and monitoring systems in place.

To meet these standards, Grosvenor Road Primary School will:
1. Identify and assign roles and responsibilities to manage the filtering and monitoring systems.
2. Review the filtering and monitoring provision at least annually.
3. Ensure the filtering system blocks harmful and inappropriate content without unreasonably impacting teaching and learning.
4. Implement effective monitoring strategies that meet the safeguarding needs of our school.

All school devices, including individual children’s Chromebooks, are part of the school's Senso Monitoring program. The system monitors keyboard entry and reports key words and watch words as they are typed on any child's keyboard. This provides real time and highly effective monitoring of all users on the school system. This should provide parents and carers with confidence that their children's experience of the online world is safe and backed up by a broad curriculum of online safety guidance.