E-safety issues for schools

Ruth Hammond
Key messages for today

• Why ICT?
• Young people and ICT
• Relevant policies and legislation
• Issues and risks
• Role of the school/organisation
• Support available
• What do you need to do?
Why use ICT?
• Learners who use ICT, and use it well,
outperform their counterparts who do not.
ImpaCT2 found that at KS2 this can be the
equivalent of a whole term‟s extra progress
and at GCSE it can account for half an extra
grade.

• Professor Stephen Heppell, Director Ultralab

“..the internet isn‟t just a new form of digital
television…”

• Host of positive benefits

• Children live in a world of ICT!

 For young people ICT is not a novelty but the way
they engage with their world - 21st century culture

• Communication via email, chat rooms and message boards, IM,

SMS, weblogs, social networks, Skype, podcasting……..
• Entertainment – watching films on DVD, downloading music,
playing games, taking, storage and retrieval of digital images.
• Education – research, word processing, data manipulation,
modelling, design, creativity, recording thoughts
• Personal management – diary, appointment calendars and
address books, alarm clock and personal reminders, finding the best
party locations!
• For shopping
• ………………..all at the same time!
http://www.marcprensky.com

• Digital natives, digital immigrants

– Natives – youth of today - “native speakers” of the digital language of
computers, video games and the Internet. – the generation of hypertext,
downloaded music, phones in their pockets, a library on their laptops,
beamed messages and instant messaging

– Immigrants – not born into the digital world but have adapted many
aspects of new technology- retain an „accent‟ - printing out email or
having your secretary do it for you; printing out docs rather than editing
onscreen; making „did you get my email‟ phone call
 Why should I be concerned about e-safety?

• Every Child Matters: Change for children

– Be healthy
– Stay safe
– Enjoy and achieve
– Make a positive contribution
– Achieve economic well-being

• Safeguarding Children in Education – Sept 2004

• Practitioners need to know that ICT is safe if they are to
take advantage of its benefits
• Schools have a duty of care - both inside and outside
• DfES – „Harnessing Technology‟ – the e-strategy
What are the risks?
• Content -sexual, racist, violent unreliable/bigoted ie safety of children‟s minds
• Commerce - scams, phishing and pharming, bluejacking, downloads which
steal information– children‟s and parents!
• Contact - via interactive technologies – IM, chat, multiplayer games
• Culture – bullying, camera phones, blogging, moblogging, social networking …..

• The „C‟ of ICT is the most dangerous

ie Communication which can lead to Contact

• Approx 40 - 50 cases in the last 4 -5 years compared to 500 serious

road casualties per year!

• The biggest Internet danger is that we concentrate on the dangers and

forget the benefits!
• Balance and perspective
http://www.children-go-online.net/

„..the risks do not merit a moral panic, and

nor do they warrant seriously restricting
children‟s internet use because this would
deny them the many benefits of the
internet. Indeed, there are real costs to
lacking internet access or sufficient skills
to use it.‟

„However, the risks are nonetheless

widespread, they are experienced by
many children as worrying or
problematic, and they do warrant
serious intervention by government,
educators, industry and parents.‟
Schools should raising awareness of:

• Internet safety
– keeping personal information secret across all technologies – email, chat,
IM, mobile
– bullying across all technologies including camera phones & blogs
– people online may not be who they say they are

• Internet security
– spotting copycats websites and scams
– viruses and spam via email
– if it looks to good to be true it generally is

• Media literacy
– evaluating reliability/validity of information
– copyright and plagiarism
– P2P networks - allow anyone to publish videos and large files to anyone
who needs them eg Napster and Gnutella, music and porn!
 Issues for schools to consider

• Who is responsible for teaching e-safety?

– In primary phase?
– In secondary phase?
– Whole school issue of child safety not ICT!
– Technological issues
• At what age should internet safety lessons start?
• How can parents be involved?
• What support is there in schools for teachers in the event of a
„disclosure‟?
• Advent of 3G and „mobile internet‟
• Protection for staff – AUP
• Damage to network through downloading of files/viruses
• Data security
• Identifiable/contactable/pupil email addresses/images on web sites
• Accessing inappropriate web content at school
• External issues being brought into school – eg cyberbullying
Key measures
 Policy and procedure - what help is available?

Becta‟s Schools website http://www.becta.org.uk/schools/esafety

•E-safety publication:

Main recommendations:
•E-safety co-ordinator
•Policy and management team
•Checklists of AUPs
•Incident log

•Safetynet discussion forum

Infrastructure - what help is available?
• ISP Safety site http://ispsafety.ngfl.gov.uk

• Becta Accreditation of Internet Services to Education:

enables schools to purchase services from accredited suppliers that
meet and maintain specific standards in content filtering and service
performance.

• Delivering the National Digital Infrastructure

– Robust and reliable networks
– Secure and safe access to data and content via the National
Education Network
– Best value purchasing
– Technical support and services
– Finding choosing and using resources
– Personalised learning spaces
Educational resources - what help is available?
www.becta.org.uk/publications
Primary:
• The Internet Proficiency scheme for
KS2
• Smartsurfers for KS2

Secondary:
• Signposts to Safety for KS3/4
• Childnet International -
„Know it all‟ for KS3

Advice for parents and the wider

community:
www.parentscentre.gov.uk
 Vicky Gillings
Marketing & Public Awareness
Co-ordinator
020 7238 2012
Vicky.Gillings@ceop.gov.uk

www.thinkuknow.co.uk
What should schools/organisations be doing?

•Be alert to the possibilities!

•Provide:

- Policies and procedures

- Infrastructure
- Education for staff, parents, students
- Standards and inspection
E-safety: the experience in English Educational Establishments

Autumn term 2005, random anonymous sample

444 schools and colleges

(303 primary, 123 secondary, Special schools, PRU‟s, colleges)
In depth interviews with 61 teachers
25 Local Education Authorities
5 Regional Broadband Consortia

Key findings
LEAs are often the first port of call for e-safety advice – particularly in primary education
Having a designated e-safety co-ordinated and AUP makes a difference
Most common breech of e-safety is the viewing of unsuitable content
Teaching about e-safety makes a difference

http://www.becta.org.uk/research/reports/esafetyaudit
 Ruth Hammond

British Educational Communications and

Technology Agency (Becta)
Millburn Hill Road
Science Park
Coventry
CV4 7JJ

• Tel: 02476 416994

• Fax: 02476 411418
• www.becta.org.uk

• ruth.hammond@becta.org.uk
 ICT – positive benefits include…….
• contributes to raising standards across the curriculum – ImpaCT2
• enhances the learning experience of pupils and improves the effectiveness of teaching
• allows pupils to engage with content visually, audibly and kinaesthetically
– ie personalisation of learning experience
• revisit and repeat learning as required
• allows interactivity and communication opportunities
• reaches children that find traditional teaching methods ineffective or difficult
• removes tiresome tasks eg drafting and re-drafting, calculating results
• allows more time for higher order thinking skills eg analysis and interpretation of cause
and effect, what if?
• takes learning beyond school day and school boundaries
• allows parental/carer involvement
• allows access to information, images, communication with a range of audiences,
animation, video and collaborative endeavours
• difficult concepts or potentially dangerous scenarios can be experienced eg virtual reality
tours and movies
• aids teacher assessment – automated marking and voting pads, recording and analysis of
assessment data
• provides access to learning for those with special needs
Stay Safe:

• From maltreatment, neglect, violence and sexual exploitation

• From accidental injury and death
• From bullying and discrimination
• From crime and anti-social behaviour in and out of school
• Have security, stability and are cared for

These aims were written with the „real‟ world in mind, however
many equally apply to the „virtual‟ world of 21st century
DfES – ‘Harnessing Technology’ – the e-strategy

„One of our key aims is to personalise learning for children and

adults, and their interaction with professionals.‟

• home-school links
• Anytime anywhere learning
• Authentication
• Lifelong!
• Learner centric
• addressing children and learning services as a whole, rather
than sector-by-sector
• Safeguarding children across all services in line with
Every Child Matters agenda
 Communicating with Young People

Cyber bullying
Internet Watch Foundation

• Key Figures from IWF's 2005 Annual Report

• 23,658 reports from the public processed by IWF
• 6,128 reports made to law enforcement agencies
• Only 0.4% of potentially illegal child abuse content hosted in the UK
• 0% of criminally obscene content hosted in the UK
• 0% of criminally racist content hosted in the UK
• 40% of child abuse content traced to the US
• 28% of child abuse content traced to Russia
• 17% of child abuse content traced to Asian countries
• 13% of child abuse content traced to Europe
• 156 intelligence reports relating to UK offenders were passed to police
• 211 newsgroups are now listed as potentially illegal in the UK
• 226 notices were issued to internet service providers to take down a further 12,777
images that were published in newsgroups
• 47% of child abuse websites were commercial Pay-Per-View
• 70% of Pay-Per-View websites are hosted in Russia or the US
• Every report to IWF hotline processed within 24 hours
Concerns are shifting from what children are „downloading‟ in
terms of content to what they are „uploading‟ to the net.
What help is available for the Primary phase?

Education and training

• The Internet Proficiency scheme

for KS2 (UK)
• Netsmartz (US)
• Disney (US)
• Faux Paw (US)
• Internet Superheroes (US)
• Smart Surfers (UK)
What help is available for the Secondary phase?

Education and training

• Signposts to Safety for KS3/4

• Know It All
• Chalk Face resource
• Websafe Crackerz
• Thinkuknow.co.uk
• Virtual Global Task Force
• Netsmartz (US)
http://www.smartsurfers.co.uk/