Online Safety Advice for Parents

At St Mary and St Benedict’s we are aware of how much time and how much access children have with electronic technology. At school, this access is limited and monitored with school network safety filters (Impero & Smoothwall). We would like to ensure that this level of safety can be maintained in our wider school community. We hope that this page can make some suggestions about how to safely manage your child’s use of devices and also apps and games.

Online Safety in school

From Early Years to Year 6, we teach online safety in a number of ways:

• Through discrete computing lessons
• PSHE/RSHE sessions using resources from 10:10 and Kapow
• Whole school events such as Safer Internet Day, which is held annually in February
• Incidental opportunities which arise during a school year.

Your child needs to be safe when online whether at school or at home. This is communicated at the start of year in Parent meetings when we share the ‘Acceptable Use Policy’.

Age Restriction Guidance

Posters for age restrictions for popular apps/gaming etc..

Help guides for popular apps – safety checklists:

Additional App guidance:

Follow the links below to the sites for guidance 

Youtube

WhatsApp 

Reporting Harmful Content (RHC)

What happens if a child sees something online that they don't like?

At school, because we have a network filter and because teachers have researched the sites children need to access to support learning, it is extremely rare that ‘harmful content’ appears. But how can you protect your child at home?

The Reporting Harmful Content website is managed by two organisations which aim to make the UK one of the safest places to use the internet in the world.

The service has been created to offer anyone living in the UK a simple and convenient pathway for gaining access to reporting routes for commonly used social networking sites, gaming platforms, apps and streaming services alongside trusted online safety advice, help and support. 

Children under 13 years of age should tell an adult they trust about what has happened and to ask for their help in reporting anything.

RHC also have advice and links to reporting routes for other online harms people may come across or face, such as impersonation, privacy violations and intimate image abuse. 

The RHC website provides a gateway to several reporting pages, including:

• links to reporting routes on commonly used sites for other examples of online harm
• help, advice and support on what to do if experiencing or witnessing harm online

Reporting to RHC

A report can be made 24 hours a day, 7 days a week using the online reporting forms and helpline assistants will usually review and respond to reports within 72 hours between 10am and 4pm Monday to Friday.

If you need support due to Harmful Content, click here.

RHC have created a flowchart to help you decide if you need to make a report. 

Other Useful Sites:

Internet Matters

UK Safer Internet Centre 

CEOPs