E-Safety
Ofsted defines e-safety as: “The school’s ability to protect and educate pupils and staff in their use of technology and to have the appropriate mechanisms to intervene and support any incident where appropriate.”
Three particular e-safety risks are:
Teachers need to be able to ensure that: “All groups of pupils feel safe at school (and) they understand very clearly what constitutes unsafe situations and are highly aware of how to keep themselves and others safe.”
As a teacher it will be my duty to care for the pupils I teach. I will be legally accountable for my student’s safety when they are in school and this involves being safe online. This means that I will need to carefully plan lessons which involve the use of the internet and assess any threats in order to minimise e-safety risks. Furthermore, I will need to educate pupils and equip them with knowledge to stay safe on the internet not only at school but also at home.
E-safety within lessons.
One strategy I observed, to help children assess risks related to using the internet, was a traffic light system. At the start of any lesson, involving the use of computers, the teacher would discuss with the children how safe they thought the activity would be in terms of e-safety. For example, using a word processor and not the internet would be green and finding information on a preapproved website might be amber. I think this strategy was a good approach to e-safety. It required children to reflect upon the safety of the activity they were doing, and become aware of potential dangers. This meant that they would hopefully use a similar thought process when accessing a computer on their own.
E-Safety Staff Meeting - 19/11/14
During my GPP I was fortunate enough to attend a staff meeting on E-safety and the new computing curriculum. Prior to the staff meeting the computing cooordinator had conducted a survey placed on the school website exploring student's internet usage.
This suggests that children need to be encouraged to be more open with their internet use and also be educated on what important information adults might need to be told about. E,g, if a stranger starts to message them.
This survey is very helpful because it provides the school with information about their pupils. This means they can adapt the way they teach e-safety depending on the year group and make it relevant and specific to the pupil's within their school. It is also useful because the school can assess if parents have the knowledge or are doing enough to protect children when they're online at home. They can then provide information and guidance accordingly.
One caveat is that the survey was quantitative and children could only select a list of predetermined answers. This means they couldn't provide any other different thoughts or information about their internet use.
The school decided to have a dedicated lesson to E-safety every half term and to remind children about the issues in every computing lesson.
Three particular e-safety risks are:
- Being exposed to illegal, inappropriate or harmful material.
- Being subjected to harmful online interactions with other users,
- Personal online behaviour that increases the likelihood of, or causes, harm.
Teachers need to be able to ensure that: “All groups of pupils feel safe at school (and) they understand very clearly what constitutes unsafe situations and are highly aware of how to keep themselves and others safe.”
As a teacher it will be my duty to care for the pupils I teach. I will be legally accountable for my student’s safety when they are in school and this involves being safe online. This means that I will need to carefully plan lessons which involve the use of the internet and assess any threats in order to minimise e-safety risks. Furthermore, I will need to educate pupils and equip them with knowledge to stay safe on the internet not only at school but also at home.
E-safety within lessons.
One strategy I observed, to help children assess risks related to using the internet, was a traffic light system. At the start of any lesson, involving the use of computers, the teacher would discuss with the children how safe they thought the activity would be in terms of e-safety. For example, using a word processor and not the internet would be green and finding information on a preapproved website might be amber. I think this strategy was a good approach to e-safety. It required children to reflect upon the safety of the activity they were doing, and become aware of potential dangers. This meant that they would hopefully use a similar thought process when accessing a computer on their own.
E-Safety Staff Meeting - 19/11/14
During my GPP I was fortunate enough to attend a staff meeting on E-safety and the new computing curriculum. Prior to the staff meeting the computing cooordinator had conducted a survey placed on the school website exploring student's internet usage.
- How do the children regularly access the internet outside of school?
- How often do the children go on the internet when they are not in school?
- Do parents or guardians have rules about internet use?
- How do children feel about having rules to use the internet?
- Do children talk about what they see and do on the internet with an adult?
This suggests that children need to be encouraged to be more open with their internet use and also be educated on what important information adults might need to be told about. E,g, if a stranger starts to message them.
- What would children do if they were upset by something on the internet?
This survey is very helpful because it provides the school with information about their pupils. This means they can adapt the way they teach e-safety depending on the year group and make it relevant and specific to the pupil's within their school. It is also useful because the school can assess if parents have the knowledge or are doing enough to protect children when they're online at home. They can then provide information and guidance accordingly.
One caveat is that the survey was quantitative and children could only select a list of predetermined answers. This means they couldn't provide any other different thoughts or information about their internet use.
The school decided to have a dedicated lesson to E-safety every half term and to remind children about the issues in every computing lesson.