Internet Safety
We are: Safe
With the internet being such a big an important part of life in these times, it is essential that parents and children know how to keep safe online. Unfortunately, mistakes will be made, and many of our children will experience problems on the internet. At Cavendish, we fully intend to empower our children with the knowledge and skills to know what to do if something does go wrong, and how to reduce that risk in day to day practice.
What do we do in school?
The safety of our children is of paramount importance to us, therefore one thing we implement at the beginning of each academic year is for everyone to sign an 'Acceptable Use Policy' , which parents also sign. This outlines our online expectations and guidelines. The children are supervised when they access the Internet, which is heavily filtered. The school network is also monitored and the children are always encouraged to tell an adult or use the CEOP button if they have any concerns.
Online Safety in the school curriculum: Online safety is taught within the computing curriculum throughout the year, and we also celebrate the national 'Online Safety Day' by partaking in numerous activities. Online Safety is regularly discussed during our Pupil Parliament meetings, and we invite our PCSO's in to discuss any particular concerns or updates. As part of our Daily Dashboard, we encourage our pupils to talk about their experiences and keep Online Safety as a discussion point throughout the year.
To read our Online Safety at Cavendish Junior School document, please click here.
If you would like to see further information on how we manage Online Safety, please go to our policies page where you will find a copy of our Online Safety Policy.
What can parents do to help?
We recognise that it can be very hard to monitor what your child is doing on all of their electrical devices, however, we do encourage regular discussions with your children to know what apps they are using and who they are sharing information with. We also advise you to think carefully about the parent controls on each device and to check regularly that these are still in place.
If you have a particular concern about an incident, or you have noticed a change in your child's online behaviour, please do not hesitate to contact school, where we would be happy to support you.
Below are a number of links that provide further information on Online Safety:
- CEOP: The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre provides online support to children and parents on issues such as: bullying, viruses, webcam/video chat use and photo distribution. Parents and children report specific online safety concerns here.
- Think U Know: Think U Know provides up-to-date information and activities to educate children and parents on how to stay safe online.
- Internet Matters: Internet Matters provides accessible information on issues such as sexting, radicalisation, online grooming and your online reputation.
- The following link will take you to the magazine Digital Parenting. This is really useful for top tips and up to date information.
- This link will provide you with further information on Online Gaming.
- This link provides information on sharing images of your children online, and how to do this safely.
- Finally, the following links are specific guidance on Online Exploitation and Grooming The most popular apps being used by children and what they do
- Houseparty app guidance
- Snapchat app guidance
- Tik Tok guidance
- NSPCC have produced some excellent guidance on Online Safety, particularly during the Coronavirus pandemic
- This link takes you to the Department of Education with advice on Online Safety.
In addition to this page, please see 'Safe' under our Cavendish Code, we have a separate page under Pupils for Online Safety tips for our children, and our Online Safety Policy and Child Protection Policy can be found under Policies. Our Safeguarding page under 'Parents' will also provide you with further useful links.