Online Safety Filtering and Monitoring

On our training day in September all staff completed training on the updates to the new ‘Keeping Children Safe In Education 2023’ document, and how this applies to the children in our school.

One of the new updates is around how we use filtering and monitoring software within school to ensure that our children are not exposed to any content which is not appropriate to them.  We use a system called Sophos to do this, and this is alerted to many words and phrases that may provide content unsuitable for our pupils to see.  These lists are updated regularly, and the words are tested by our online safety team within school, and within our IT team.  We ensure that we test all devices which belong to our school including iPad, Laptops and computers and this is completed half termly by our in school online safety team. This work is monitored by our Safeguarding Governor Paul Cook.

Where pupils or staff access searches that are unsuitable for them the online safety team are alerted to allow them to check in about the content and context of the search and ensure the safety of everyone in school.  A record of this is kept ensuring that any trends or training needs are identified quickly, and support can be put into place where appropriate.

This term we will be discussing this more within our Online Safety blog which our Online safety lead Maria writes, we will also be providing you with the opportunity to attend or watch a recording of, some training that we will providing on cyber security within the home and how you can help your young person to stay safe away from school.

Our Online Safety Lead in school is Maria Mawdesley. Please contact her on m.mawdesley@percyhedley.org.uk if you want any more information or need support with anything online safety related.

Ask Us Anything In Confidence About Online Safety

Please use the link below to ask us a question about all things online safety, your questions come to the online safety team only and we will answer or signpost you to the most relevant information.  If you would like a personal response please include the relevant contact details.  If not questions will be used anonymously to complete a FAQ’s section within the blog and the website.  If you do not want yours to appear in this just let us know.

Please use the link at the top of the form to change the language or use the text to speech button to support accessibility within your responses.