Holy Cross Catholic Primary School
'Living, Loving, Learning Together'
E-Safety
E-Safety
Internet security is a very important issue to all at Holy Cross Catholic Primary School – we hope every child has a safe and happy experience whilst using the internet.
Technology in the 21st Century is seen as an essential resource to support learning and teaching, as well as playing an important role in the everyday lives of children, young people and adults. Consequently, schools need to build in the use of these technologies in order to arm our young people with the skills to access life-long learning and employment.
Information and Communications Technology covers a wide range of resources including; web- based and mobile learning. It is also important to recognise the constant and fast paced evolution of ICT within our society as a whole. Currently the internet technologies children and young people are using both inside and outside of the classroom include:
• Websites
• Learning Platforms and Virtual Learning Environments, (Purple Mash, Mathletics, Spelling Shed, Timetable Rockstars)
• E-mail and Instant Messaging (Text to Parents)
• Chat Rooms and Social Networking (Facebook)
• Blogs and Wikis
• Podcasting
• Video Broadcasting
• Music Downloading
• Gaming
• Mobile/ Smart phones with text, video and/ or web functionality
• Other mobile devices with web functionality
Whilst exciting and beneficial both in and out of the context of education, much ICT, particularly web-based resources, are not consistently policed. All users need to be aware of the range of risks associated with the use of these Internet technologies.
At Holy Cross, we understand the responsibility to educate our pupils on e-Safety issues; teaching them the appropriate behaviours and critical thinking skills to enable them to remain both safe and legal when using the internet and related technologies, in and beyond the context of the classroom.
Schools hold personal data on learners, staff and other people to help them conduct their day- to-day activities. Some of this information is sensitive and could be used by another person or criminal organisation to cause harm or distress to an individual. The loss of sensitive information can result in media coverage, and potentially damage the reputation of the school. This can make it more difficult for your school to use technology to benefit learners.
Everybody in the school has a shared responsibility to secure any sensitive information used in their day to day professional duties and even staff not directly involved in data handling should be made aware of the risks and threats and how to minimise them.
Helpful websites for parents and carers:
Helpful websites that young people can access:
Activities that parents can complete with children at home:
Age restrictions:
Making sure children are accessing age appropriate content is important as part of our role to educate pupils to become responsible internet users. Below is a chart showing the age restrictions placed on different social media app and services.
If you allow your child access to these apps, at Holy Cross we strongly advise you to:
- Please ensure that, if your child is communicating with others, they are considerate in the way in which they express themselves and avoid language that may upset others.
- Supervise your child’s activities online but particularly on social media and ensure their privacy settings on switched on the highest level. - See documents below.
- Make sure you are aware of what your child is posting and who they are friends with on these accounts.
- Delete apps or confiscate devices if your child is using them inappropriately.
- Ensure that children do not have unsupervised access to mobile phones, tablets etc. particularly at night when settling to sleep.
Setting up parental controls:
What parents need to know guides:
Tiktok is an app that is becoming increasingly popular with children. But is it safe for our children to use? iTunes rate the app as +13. This is due to the adult content, dangerous pranks and stunts, self-harm themes in some videos, bullying, live streaming interactivity and the social side of the app. If you allow your child to use TikTok, the privacy settings should be set to the highest level. Use of this app may lead to bullying, possible sharing of their videos beyond their friends and inappropriate comments, random friend requests, and explicit language and adult themes. Please read the documents below for more information.
To find out more about our E-Safety Curriculum, please click the link below.