Online Safety

It is essential that children are safeguarded from potentially harmful and inappropriate online material and behaviours. At Repton Manor Primary School we empower, protect and educate children and staff in their use of technology and establish mechanisms to identify, intervene in, and escalate any concerns where appropriate but these messages can only be successful if they’re supported and reinforced by parents and carers when children are at home.

The school’s Safeguarding and Pastoral Director (Designated Safeguarding Lead), Hannah Ferris, holds overall responsibility for Online Safety within Repton Manor Primary School. Hannah Ferris or a Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead (Matt Rawling,  Louise Summers or John Page) would be happy to support any parent or carer with any concerns or to further their knowledge.  As parents, you are also able to report any online abuse online using the button below:

The breadth of issues classified within online safety is considerable, but can be categorised into four areas of risk:

• Content: being exposed to illegal, inappropriate or harmful content.  For example, pornography, fake news, racism, misogyny, self-harm, suicide, anti-Semitism, radicalisation and extremism.

• Contact: being subjected to harmful online interaction with other users. For example, peer to peer pressure, commercial advertising and adults posing as children with the intention to groom or exploit them for sexual, criminal, financial or other purposes.

• Conduct: personal online behaviour that increases the likelihood of, or causes, harm. For example, making, sending and receiving explicit images (e.g consensual and non-consensual sharing of nude and semi-nude images or videos) and/or pornography or other explicit images and online bullying.

• Commerce - risks such as online gambling, inappropriate advertising, phishing and or financial scams.

In school, we use Project Evolve as a basis to support our children to understand risks and respond appropriately in the digital world. We also have appointed Digital Leaders in school who support with peer learning and raising our whole school understanding of staying safe digitally. Each year children devise their class or year group Online Safety rules which can be used by parents to support safe use of digital devices at home.  Further guidance can be found on our safeguarding or policy pages.

Useful resources for further information

The following websites are useful for parents to access for general online safety advice:

• Internet Matters

• Thinkuknow

• Childnet

• NSPCC - Online Safety and Net Aware

• Parent Zone

• Parents Protect

National Helplines

• CEOP - report online sexual abuse

• UK Safer Internet Centre:

  • Professional Online Safety Helpline

  • Report Harmful Content

  • Revenge Porn Helpline

• Internet Watch Foundation

• Childline

• Gov.uk - Report online material promoting terrorism or extremism

• Lucy Faithfull - Stop it now

Does your child have an iPad or Amazon Fire Tablet?

Tablets are a familiar companion for many of our children. They act as a portable television, an aid for schoolwork and a blessing on long car journeys.

That said, there are still some aspects of tablets that parents and carers should bear in mind to help protect their child from online risks. These guides highlight possible hazards including the risk of age-inappropriate content, physical damage to the device and potential screen addiction.

Click here for more information https://nationalonlinesafety. com/guides.