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On 10th Feb 2010 Ofsted published the ‘Safe use of new technologies’ report.  This is a report based on 35 one day e-safety inspections that have been carried out in a variety of school settings.  The report discusses the findings of the 35 inspections and examines the features of schools that had outstanding practice as well as ones that were found to have unsatisfactory practice.  You can download and read the report from here.

1) SID10

Safer Internet Day (SID) is an annual event organised by Insafe to promote the safer and more responsible use of online technologies and mobile phones. CEOP acts as the co-ordinator of SID activities in the UK. The theme for this year is “Think before you post”, encouraging children and young people to manage their online identity by utilising privacy settings on social networking sites, selecting friends online that they can trust and taking careful consideration of the potential consequences before publishing images of themselves and others online. For further information about CEOP’s initiatives and resources for SID10 please read on or visit www.thinkuknow.co.uk/saferinternetdayuk 

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 Please take a minute of your time for Madeleine McCann and help spread this special message around the world.

A new film has been released by the UK’s police organisation for child protection – the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre – aimed at anyone close to the person who was involved in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. That person could be a relative, friend, work colleague or neighbour. Whoever they are, they have a secret that could reveal what happened to Madeleine.

In order to reach that person, CEOP are asking for the public’s help to share this message virally, via the internet, so that the message is so widespread it becomes one click away to the person who knows something about Madeleine’s disappearance.  The message is then a constant reminder that it is never too late to do the right thing, to stop keeping this secret  and pass this vital information to their local police.

You can view the full message which is part of a 60 second film at http://www.ceop.police.uk/

If you are online and part of an online community, you can help.  Post the link on your social networking site, email your friends and colleagues and  encourage them to share the film, blog and Tweet about the film and link to the website above.  Do anything you can to spread this message around the world. 

The message is available at http://www.ceop.police.uk/ and is in seven different languages – English, Arabic, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. 

This initiative is supported by Leicestershire Police, Interpol, Europol and international police agencies as well as specialist charities and NGO’s such as the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), Missing Children Europe and the UK charity Parents and Abducted Children Together (PACT).

So, please help.  Take a minute for Madeleine and help share this message around the world.

 Thank you

Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre

www.ceop.police.uk

http://www.forensicsoftware.co.uk/index.htm

Cybermentors

http://cybermentors.org.uk/

Children from the charity talked about issues facing young people online. Cybermentors are young people who have been trained to act as mentors and guides to other young people online. They are supported by Senior Cybermentors who are HE/FE based students. BBCounsellors   are also on hand and they are fully qualified BACP accredited counsellors who are available 8am to 10pm to assist and counsel young people who are being bullied. Partners carrying the Cybermentors logo direct young people to the site.  The law and CEOP are contactable for serious issues around online behaviour.

Becta Presentation

 Neil McLean, Executive Director Institutional and Workforce Development gave a presentation on Safeguarding Next Generation Learners. He talked about the educational challenges facing children today, such as Continuous change, High Expectations, New roles, and the Changing nature of childhood. He stressed the positive aspects of new technologies while giving everyone responsibility for safeguarding children – “Protecting children whilst they are in our care and educating them for when they are not.”  While many children are confident computer users they still “do not possess the critical and analytical skills to assess the information that they find on the web.”

Becta Accreditation: – enables educational organisations to purchase accredited internet products and services from providers that maintain specific standards of service, including safeguards for internet access.

Policies and practice: – Main recommendations:-E-safety co-ordinator, Policy and management team, Roles and responsibilities, Checklists of AUPs and Incident log. The Becta’s school website can be found at http://www.becta.org.uk/schools/esafety

NEW! DCSF Cyberbullying guidance
www.teachernet.gov.uk/wholeschool/behaviour/tacklingbullying.   

 www.digizen.org/

CPD resources for trainees, practicing teachers and adults who work with children: – Childnet’s  Know it all

Training for professionals: – Think you know, EPICT, UCLAN

Inspection: – It’s in the School Evaluation Framework: 4b the extent to which learners adopt safe and responsible practices in using new technologies, including the Internet. Now strengthened by the Laming review. Ofsted has also designed the new school inspection framework which will apply from September 2009 so that it will have a stronger focus on safeguarding. The current inspection framework already includes a judgement about whether safeguarding arrangements in schools are satisfactory but this will be strengthened in the new framework with a grading on a scale from 1(outstanding) to 4(inadequate) for a school’s safeguarding arrangements. Any school which receives a grade of 4 will also be likely to be awarded an inadequate grade for its overall performance and will need therefore to make urgent improvements. These arrangements will ‘raise the bar’ about the importance of safeguarding for schools and will also facilitate the identification and dissemination of best practice.

What about the children themselves- “Children and young people need to be empowered to keep themselves safe – this isn’t just about a top-down approach. Children will be children – pushing boundaries and taking risks. At a public swimming pool we have gates, put up signs, have lifeguards and shallow ends, but we also teach children how to swim.”  Dr Tanya Bryon, Safer Children in a digital World. The report of the Bryon Review.

UK Council for Child Internet Safety
UKCCIS

• Officially launched 29 September 08 as result of Byron Review
• over 100 organisations chaired by Home Office and DCSF Ministers
• a Child Internet Safety Strategy, to be delivered early next year
• The strategy will:

–        establish a comprehensive public information and awareness and child internet safety campaign across Government and industry including a ‘one-stop shop’ on child internet safety;

–        provide specific measures to support vulnerable children and young people, such as taking down illegal internet sites that promote harmful behaviour;

–        promote responsible advertising to children online; and

–        establish voluntary codes of practice for user-generated content sites, making such sites commit to take down inappropriate content within a given time.  

Warwick Presentation – Safeguarding Children in a Digital World – talked about the Warwickshire e safety solution:-Websense Internet Filtering, Policy Central Enterprise Monitoring and CyberSentinel Home Application. The Websense website has a WCC customer case study report.  http://www.websense.com/docs/CaseStudies/casestudy_warwickshire_county_council_uk.pdf

For information of Forensic software go to http://www.forensicsoftware.co.uk/FSL_Education.htm

 Channel 4 videos – Anna Richardson, Journalist and TV Presenter, reviewed the making of “The Sex Education Show vs. Pornography” for Channel 4 and how ease of access to pornography influences the views of young people towards sex and relationships.

Hopefully you are all aware that today is Safer Internet Day, so how much do you actually know about e-safety.  Have a go at this quiz and post your marks in the comments, I got 73% so I best go and brush up on my answers.

CEOP has their own channel on YouTube: uk.youtube.com/ceop

Here is just one of a selection of videos you can view:

October’s email will focus on a trend that is currently causing concern online – ‘Spimming’.

Most of us are aware of SPAM – the junk messages that we get sent to our email inbox or to our mobile phones. Some people are now using popular chat facilities and Instant Messenger applications to send something called ‘SPIM’ to others.

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Below are CEOPs plans for Safer Internet Day and their training plans for 2009.

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Recently, the CEOP Centre published its annual Strategic Overview which contains all the key themes that you as parents need to be aware of in relation to internet safety. In particular, the report covers environments where our  intelligence suggests are frequented by offenders, as well as explaining their particular behaviour patterns – some of which could be useful early signs to watch out for.

It is vital that we all understand the way in which technology is evolving, so that we can understand the threat posed by those who would seek to harm our children. By understanding these environments, we can all ensure that we have the knowledge to empower our children in staying safe online.

Convergence

Convergence of technology and behaviour is one of the most significant trends that has been seen in the last year. The traditional types of online environments – social networking, online gaming and instant messaging – are now merging to become components of larger social sites. An example of this is the integration of instant messenger applications, such as Windows Live and AIM, within social networking sites – in other words sites that once were designed for young people to post pictures and keep in touch with their friends online are now also offering instant online “chat” facilities.

As a result, the terms “online” and “offline” are hardly ever used these days by young people – the reason is simple – they are now one and the same.

These evolving environments can present new risks for children, offering the potential for offenders to take advantage of the information available to them. The expansion of social sites and the way they are being used by children and young people can make the ‘grooming’ process easier, as offenders are able to build a range of contacts and express shared interests and opinions with children, who are increasingly used to having the online world as their audience.
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This summer’s email provides some top tips and information for parents during the summer holidays.

Q.  How many times do we hear parents ask the question ‘how can we keep the children entertained during the summer holidays?’

Well, the internet offers a lot of entertainment for young people. Gaming, sharing pictures and keeping in touch with mates cover just some of the fun – and all from the safety of their own home.  But how safe are they? And what can you as parents do to ensure they are not engaging in risky behaviour that may inadvertently put them at risk?

This month we’ve got some top tips on internet safety that can help your child safety enjoy using the internet this summer – and give you some peace of mind too.
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