What is E-safety In Schools?
Why is safeguarding and e-safety one of the biggest priorities for millions of parents, teachers, tutors, and guardians around the world right now? It is simple, the internet offers more educational resources than any other source in the world, but it also hosts considerable dangers and threats. To keep children and students safe online, the guardians around them must know how to identify these threats and prevent them.
Unlike the generations of learners before, understanding and using the internet is an unavoidable part of our children’s lives. The world wide web offers an endless stream of opportunities for learning, engaging, researching, and socialising that our young learners relish. However, despite the undeniable blessing that the internet may be, we must accept its drawback as well. This is where e-safety comes in.
Cyberbullying, spamming, and cybercrime are an increasing threat that impacts millions of teenagers and children the world over. Online abuse and cyberstalking can take shape in a number of forms and can sometimes be hard to spot. Examples of online threats to children include:
• Bullying/cyberbullying
• Dangerous social trends
• Grooming
• Emotional Abuse
• Fake social media accounts
• Grooming
In this blog, we will explain why e-safety in schools is so important, the steps that schools can take to safeguard their students and how we can help.
Why is E-Safety so important?
Studying and homework no longer require the effort of going to the library or diving head-first into a pile of books. Students these days have a world of knowledge at their fingertips. However, the risks of using the internet – even for educational purposes – cannot be overlooked. Schools and parents have an undeniable responsibility to safeguard their students when they are online and to educate them about the potential risks that they could face.
“Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master”
– Christian Lous Lange.
These risks and threats might manifest as grooming, impersonation, grooming or even exposure to inappropriate content. As guardians and support systems of these young people, schools and teachers have a duty to protect students from these threats.
How To Improve E-Safety In Schools
E-safety Training
Being able to identify those who are potentially at risk from online abuse and how to appropriately report these concerns is vitally important for anyone with safeguarding responsibilities. Ensuring that your faculty and student families receive online safeguarding training is a simple and effective method of identifying the signs and symptoms of online abuse.
An important tip that will be emphasised in safeguarding training is to have regular conversations with your children about the Internet. Creating a safe and comfortable environment for them to discuss how they feel about harmful content, for you to learn about the online trends that they see or to simply understand which YouTube videos they like can make a big difference in spotting dangerous trends early on.
Training providers such as Smoothwall are dedicated to helping your whole school community to prioritise student digital safety. With teams of digital safety experts on hand to work with your school to spread an understanding of the online challenges students face and how they can be overcome.
To ensure that the right training is supplied and a trustworthy provider is offered to your school and staff, why not speak with a member of the Clarion Education team? They can advise you on the level of training that our Smoothwall partners can provide and help you take the next step to build a safe learning environment at your school.
Safeguarding Monitor
With the increasing use of technology both in and out of school, students and young adults are exposed to a host of online threats and there is more pressure on schools than ever before to keep their students protected online. One of the best and most effective ways to improve e-safety in schools is by content monitoring.
Proactive content monitoring works in real-time to track, assess and alert safeguarding teams to online risks as they happen. By tracking the online activity of students to identify inappropriate content, cyberbullying, and other potential threats, academic facilities can prevent online risks from becoming real-life incidents in real-time.
With the help of content monitoring tools and advanced safeguarding monitors, schools and colleges can become the first line of defence against inappropriate content or dangerous trends. To bring your monitoring software to the 21st century, chat with us today.
Web filtering
The challenge for any modern educational organisation is to ensure a rich and engaging online learning experience for their learners that doesn’t risk their well-being. By implementing web filtering as a part of a digital infrastructure, schools can create a safe online environment for students to learn and explore.
It’s advisable for educational institutions to look for web filtering technology that pairs with their range of ed-tech solutions. A good web filter should work alongside a school’s digital monitoring tools and firewalls.
Filtering and controlling what content and sites can be accessed from the source is one of the most effective methods of digital safeguarding for mass audiences. Enquire today to take back control of your school’s web filtering.
Digital Safeguarding with Clarion
Clarion has a team of Educational Technology Consultants on hand to help schools, colleges and MATs take the next step into a safer digital world. Our comprehensive approach to digital safeguarding ensures that schools and colleges can provide a safe and secure online environment to their students and staff.
With our affordable digital safeguarding tools and industry-leading partnerships, the Clarion team can offer your academic institution a range of technical solutions, such as firewalls, content filters and e-safety training that helps to protect your students from online threats. Plus, with over 20 years of experience in offering IT and Telecoms solutions for the education sector, you can trust our expertise.
If protecting your students online is a priority for your school or college, have a chat with us today and let us bring your e-safety measure into the 21st century.
