Online Safety
As a school community, we are committed to supporting each other in promoting online safety and wellbeing for our children and young people.
Filtering and monitoring
We urge all parents to ensure that they have robust filtering on all the devices their children use AND that they vigilantly monitor their children’s online activity. We recommend parents use a device-specific filtering and monitoring app such as Qustodio.
Online platforms and apps
Axis.org is a US-based Christian website that also provides excellent parent guides on various topics affecting children and teens, including conversation kits, discussion questions and a ‘culture translator’ to help you stay informed about trends affecting children and young people. Information is available to read on screen, download and print, or view in video format.
There are some great poster guides for parents about online platforms available at the National College: E-safety guides, including:
Common Sense Media is an organisation that reviews films, TV and games. You may not agree with all the conclusions but it gives parents an insight into the content and background of many popular and older material.
We also recommend Parent Zone and Internet Matters Social media privacy guides for parents whose children are using social media. They give up-to-date information about various social media platforms, with advice about helping children to use them safely and responsibly. 
Online searching
We recommend the use of a child-friendly and safe search engine. Swiggle can be used instead of Google, especially for children Y6 and below. The sites offered are more accessible in terms of language and content, and are safer too in terms of avoiding inappropriate content.
Inappropriate images
Children have become increasingly likely to be exposed to unwanted and inappropriate videos or images online. We recommend a really useful organisation called Protect Young Minds - which is a Christian organisation. We have found their blogs and advice to be very sensible and helpful. They have also produced an excellent book for parents to read with children (two versions available for different ages) called Good Picture Bad Pictures.
Sextortion
All schools in the UK have been sent information from the National Crime Agency, raising awareness of the sharp rise in financially motivated sexual extortion, a type of online blackmail often known in the media as ‘sextortion’. Children and young people worldwide are being targeted by organised crime groups overseas, who threaten to release nude or semi-nude images/videos of a child unless they meet their financial demands. These images/videos could be genuine or AI-generated fakes. Children in the UK are a particular focus, with boys aged 14 to 18 the most likely victims. A child or young person is never to blame if they have been a victim: they will have tricked, groomed or manipulated into sharing an image, or their image may just have been copied from another platform and digitally manipulated to appear to show the child in a compromising manner.
The best way of keeping your child or young person safe is to have frequent, age appropriate, open and non-judgemental conversations about relationships, sexual development and being online, in order to build trust, so that you are able to support them if something goes wrong. Explore new apps and sites together and talk in a balanced way, considering the benefits and the potential harms. Include financially motivated sexual extortion and the risks of AI-generated images in those conversations.
Where to get help: Report to the police by calling 101 or 999 if there is an immediate risk of harm to your child. Or you can use the CEOP link to report an incident. Further important information and advice, including how to get unwanted pictures taken down and how to report these matters to the police, can be found here:
Report online issues to protect your child | Internet Matters
Online bullying
If your child is being bullied online, there is some useful advice here: How to stop bullying and here: Cyberbullying and digital safety. The BBC’s OWNIT website has some good advice: Being bullied? Five things you need to do RIGHT NOW - Own It - BBC
Online Hoaxes
Following some recent online hoaxes and 'scare stories' doing the rounds, here is a link to a poster that schools are encouraged to share with families. It advises against sharing any scare-stories that emerge online, even if you are trying to alert or warn others against them, as this can inadvertently add momentum to hoax stories.
Online hate, extremism and fake news
If you are concerned about your child being targeted with hate messages or is at risk of being drawn to extremist views, read Tackling online hate and trolling and A straightforward guide to protecting your child from online hate, extremism and fake news
