Safeguarding legislation and government guidance says that safeguarding means:
Protecting children from maltreatment, preventing impairment of children’s health or development, ensuring that children are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care and taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes.
Child Protection: is part of safeguarding and promoting student welfare. It involves measures and structures designed to prevent and respond to significant harm, abuse, exploitation and neglect.
Safeguarding includes: Child Protection, Health Care Plans, health and safety, site security, safety on school trips and visits, safer recruitment – School Central Record & DBS checks, online safety and associated issues, anti-bullying work, children’s & learner’s health, mental health and emotional well-being and so much more.
We have a suite of policies relevant to safeguarding. Here is a link to our statutory information including safeguarding and online safety policies.
- Keep an eye on your child’s internet use including email and social media (Facebook, Snapchat, etc)
- Check the history folder of your internet browser to check what sites have been accessed
- Consider purchasing filter software or see if your ISP (BT, Sky, Talk Talk, etc) provide their own
- Protect your computer with firewall/antivirus software
All staff have been trained on how to report safeguarding and technical concerns, such as if:
- They witness or suspect unsuitable material has been accessed
- They are able to access unsuitable material
- They are teaching topics that could create unusual activity on the filtering logs
- There is a failure in the software or an abuse of the system
- There are perceived unreasonable restrictions that affect teaching and learning or administrative tasks
- They notice abbreviations or misspellings that allow access to restricted material
- Never post your personal information, such as a mobile phone number, home address, or the name of your school.
- Be aware that information you give out through social networking sites, instant messages, emails and blogs could put you at risk of bullying or harassment.
- Never meet in person with anyone you first “met” online; some people may not be who they say they are.
- Remember that posting information about your friends could put them at risk.
- Never respond to harassing or rude texts, messages and emails and delete any unwanted messages or friends who continuously leave inappropriate comments.
- Never give out your password to anyone other than your parent or carer.
- If you would not say something to another person’s face, do not post it online!
- Only add people as friends to your site if you know them in real life.
- Think before posting your photos. DO NOT post or send semi-nude or nude pictures of yourself or anyone else. Personal photos should not have revealing information such as school names or location.
- Use the privacy settings of the social networking sites.
NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children): nspcc.org.uk
Childline: childline.org.uk Contact: 0800 1111
www.thinkuknow.co.uk
National Online Safety
NSPCC Online Safety
Safer Internet
Internet Matters
Childnet.com
UK Safer Internet Centre - to report and remove harmful online content
CEOP - for advice on making a report about online abuse
Further advice:
TikTok
Set a Private Account:
- Go to your profile page;
- Tap three dots on the top right corner and select “Privacy and Settings”;
- Select “Privacy and Safety” option and toggle “Private Account” on/off.
Enable Digital Wellbeing:
- Select “Digital Wellbeing” under the app settings;
- Tap “Turn On” and set a passcode;
- Toggle “Screen Time Management” and Restricted Mode’ to turn these on.
Control Comments:
- Go to App setting/Privacy and Safety settings;
- Tap “Who Can Send Me comments”;
- Choose ‘Friends or Off’ to limit comments to people your child knows on the app. You can also turn off comments on individual videos by going to the menu button on the video and selecting ‘Comments off.
Manage Duet control:
- In Privacy and Safety settings menu;
- Tap “Who Can Duet with me”;
- Choose from ‘Everyone’, ‘Friends’ or ‘Off’.
Direct Messages
- In Privacy and Safety settings menu;
- Tap ‘Who Can Send Messages to Me’;
- Choose from ‘Everyone’, ‘Friends’ or ‘Off’.
Block or Report
- Go to the profile and click on the three dots at the top of the screen;
- From the options select block a user;
- To report a comment, tap the comment and tap report;
- To report a video, go the video and tap the ‘share’ icon tap report.
Houseparty
- Although the app is relatively secure as users can create “rooms” and pick only specific names of the people to talk with, if a child doesn’t “lock” their chat room and choose private settings, others can pop into the video chat.
- House Rules – under the ‘House Rules’ section in the app, Houseparty has a list of “rules”. These are features that the app offers to help provide a better user experience and more security.
- Room lock – users can lock the ‘room’ using a lock button on the bottom left side of the app’s home page. This prevents anyone from joining the room.
- “Stranger Danger” – Houseparty advertises a feature called “Stranger Danger”, which alerts users when individuals they may not know, enter their room.
- Location sharing – is an option to add other users who are nearby using a location-based “Near Me” option. This location-based searching can be turned off.
Instagram
- Remember you have to be 13 years of age to have an account.
- Privacy settings allow you to determine who follows you.
- Images are screen grabbed and re-circulated, so only post images you are happy to share.
- Disable the feature where you share the location of where you took the picture.
- Don’t accept friend requests from people you don’t know. help.instagram.com
Snapchat
- Remember you have to be 13 years of age to have an account.
- You can use a setting to only allow friends to send you ‘snaps’.
- You can block a friend from sending pictures to you.
- Snapchat can be set to let you know your message been opened.
- It can be set to tell you that the recipient has captured and saved your picture. www.snapchat.com/safety
Fake News
Fake news is a type of false journalism or propaganda that consists of deliberate disinformation or hoaxes spread through traditional news media - both print and broadcast - or online social media. Always double check the sources of information.
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