Westbury Leigh Church of England Primary School

Online Safety

The Internet has become an important aspect of everyday life to which children need to be able to respond safely and responsibly.

At Westbury Leigh Primary School we believe that the Internet offers a valuable resource for teachers and children, providing ways to communicate with others world-wide and initiate cultural exchanges between pupils. Access to the Internet offers both students and teachers vast, diverse, and unique resources and helps to raise educational standards. It supports the professional work of staff, enhancing the school’s management information and business administrative systems.

The main reason that we provide Internet access to our teachers and students is to promote educational excellence by facilitating resource sharing, innovation, and communication. Access to online interactive learning spaces where pupils can access targeted learning and where they can publish their own learning. However, for both students and teachers, Internet access at school is a privilege and not an entitlement.

There is always a small risk inherent with internet use that children may encounter inappropriate material on the Internet. The school will actively take all reasonable precautions to restrict pupil access to both undesirable and illegal material, as well as educate pupils to take appropriate action if they do come across such material.

Please be very careful when allowing pupils to use social networking sites such as Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, Bebo etc. Encourage your children not to publish personal information about themselves, and use the sites together. It is ideal to encourage children to use the internet on a computer situated in a family room.

Reporting a Concern

Any concern about online safety in terms of access or behaviour should be reported to the online safety lead: Mr John Fowler.

Keeping safe on line is really important. There are places you can go for advice and to report something you are worried about online. CEOP helps children stay safe online. You can report any concerns here: http://www.ceop.police.uk/Safety-Centre/ or by pressing the CEOP button at the top of this page.

Thinkuknow has advice for all ages about staying safe on a phone, tablet or a computer.

Keeping children safe on games and apps

A safe online environment is essential, at school and at home. Parents and carers need to set age-appropriate parental controls on digital devices and use internet filters to block malicious websites. These are usually free, but often need to be turned on.

To learn how to do this for the major providers of internet please click the text below:

Setting up internet filtering and parental controls

All games and apps come with a PEGI rating which advises on the suitability of the game for different ages. This is to ensure children are accessing appropriate content and to prevent them being desensitised to aggression and violence.

The nature of online gaming is that it encourages children to stay on and can often lead to FOMO (a fear of missing out). Parents should set clear time frames for online gaming and ensure there is a break from gaming well before bed time to aid restful sleep.

Social media is also age rated and this is to ensure children are mature enough to use this respectfully and safely. Most social media sites have a minimum age of 13 or above and are not suitable for primary age children.

There are some other sites below that can help parents with this.

Below are some guides which provide specific tips on how to help support your child to use internet enabled devices safely and responsibly, if what you need is not listed then check out saferinternet.org.uk for more information:

Sites that teach children online safety

NetSmart- Be totally cool and show your friends how much you know about Internet safety by watching the video clips on here. There are also loads of activities and games that will test your knowledge!
Newsround- Test your knowledge of Internet safety with this quiz from CBBC Newsround. There's also further information if you're not sure on anything.
Thinkuknow- is a really useful website and is the education programme from CEOP.

Resources and Support

support for parents and carers to keep children safe online, which outlines resources to help keep children safe from different risks online and where to go to find support and advice
guidance on staying safe online which includes information on security and privacy settings
Thinkuknow provides advice from the National Crime Agency (NCA) on staying safe online
Parent info is a collaboration between Parentzone and the NCA providing support and guidance for parents from leading experts and organisations
Childnet offers a toolkit to support parents and carers of children of any age to start discussions about their online life, to set boundaries around online behaviour and technology use, and to find out where to get more help and support
Internet matters provides age-specific online safety checklists, guides on how to set parental controls on a range of devices, and a host of practical tips to help children get the most out of their digital world
Net-aware has support for parents and carers from the NSPCC, including a guide to social networks, apps and games
Let’s Talk About It has advice for parents and carers to keep children safe from online radicalisation
UK Safer Internet Centre has tips, advice, guides and other resources to help keep children safe online, including parental controls offered by home internet providers and safety tools on social networks and other online services