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Core Principles of Internet Safety
Use of the Internet is becoming as commonplace as the telephone or television and its effective use is an essential life-skill. Poor control of Internet access brings with it the possibility of placing both pupils and staff in embarrassing, inappropriate and potentially dangerous situations. The content of our Policy is designed to help to ensure responsible use of the Internet within our school and at all times maintain paramount the safety of our pupils.
The Westbury School Internet Policy is based on the following five core principles:
Guided Educational Use
There is tremendous educational benefit to be gained from access to the World-Wide-Web. Curriculum Internet use enables the pupils in our school to access information from an almost limitless source around the world. The Internet provides us with yet another tool which promotes and develops broad aspects of communication and can make a considerable contribution towards the development of literacy skills across the curriculum. All Internet use should be planned, task-orientated and educational within a regulated and well-supervised environment. Successful, well-supervised Internet use will also reduce the opportunity for the pupils in our care to access inappropriate sites of dubious worth, which can potentially be harmful to them as a consequence of their exposure.
Risk Assessment
Life in the twenty-first century presents dangers including violence, racism, and exploitation from which children and young people need to be protected. At the same time they need to learn to recognise and avoid these risks and to become Internet-wise in the same way as many of them are street-wise. A key task for our school is to ensure that they are fully aware of the potential risks that they face in accessing what can initially appear to be very exciting and attractive Internet sites but which may in their own way be potentially harmful to them as young people. It is our responsibility as a school to ensure that the access provided by us for the children is suitably monitored and supervised and regulated by means of available control software to moderate the potentially inappropriate sites that so many young people have access to at this time.
Responsibility
Internet safety depends upon all those engaged in its use, including staff, pupils, Governors and parents, accepting responsibility for the manner in which the facility is used. It is incumbent upon us as staff to ensure that pupils are guided towards accessing appropriate sites which have clear and worthy educational foundation and that we educate them into making appropriate choices about the potential sites that they access and ensure that they understand the responsibilities that they themselves must take once choices have been made. The effective management and operation of the system within our school is primarily the responsibility of all those staff planning Internet access within their curriculum provision. Our key aim at all times will be to encourage responsible use in order to promote the achievement agenda within our school.
The Deciding Regulation
Use of the Internet, the infrastructure for which requires tremendous financial investment, brings with it the possibility of misuse and therefore the clear need for distinct regulation. Access to and the use of unmoderated chat rooms within our classrooms will not be allowed and the use of e-mail will require careful supervision and a degree of moderation by teacher colleagues.
Clear rules for the use of the Internet will be published and shared with staff, pupils, Governors and parents. These rules will be clarified by discussion with pupils. The rules themselves will be prominently displayed in order to assist our pupils in making responsible decisions about the way they themselves use the Internet.
Appropriate Strategies
Our documentation describes strategies to help to ensure responsible and safe use. They are based on limiting access, developing responsibility and guiding pupils towards educational activities. Strategies must be selected to suit our school situation and the effectiveness of such strategies should be monitored and moderated accordingly. The staff of the school need to clearly understand that there are no straightforward or totally effective solutions with regard to the monitoring of the use of the Internet. There is a collective responsibility to ensure that people remain vigilant in their supervision of Internet use and that all Internet use has a sound foundation in educational activity.
Each workstation will maintain a history which will be reviewed weekly. This history lists all of the sites visited and the times at which sites were accessed. This system will be used as a means of monitoring the use of computers and any inappropriate sites accessed will be highlighted and investigated.
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