E-Safety for Parents

The government has recently announced new measures to keep children safe online at school and at home. At Q3 Academy Langley we have appropriate filters and monitoring systems in place, so that no student can access harmful content via the Academy’s IT systems and concerns can be spotted quickly. We also teach our students about safeguarding, including online, through our tutor programmes, assemblies, Family Lunch, Ethos Week and parent workshops.

Please see below for links to some great online resources for parents and carers about online safety. They provide helpful support and information on understanding the risks and benefits of social media and advice on how to prevent risks becoming problems.

For example the UK’s Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCISS) has produced a guide for parents on social media. It contains practical tips about the use of safety and privacy features on apps, cloud services and games, and some conversation prompts to help families start talking about online safety.

• http://parentinfo.org/ – online tool with information on how to keep children safe whilst using the internet
• https://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/parents – information for concerns over children and where to report incidents
• http://www.internetmatters.org – expert information on how to keep your children safe online
• Child Safety Online Information – Government guidelines on using Social Media
• Online Safety – NSPCC online safety information

Information for internet use at home:

• Be aware of what is on the internet and what your child could be exposed to – not just inappropriate content but scam and ‘phishing’ sites
• Ironically, don’t give your child a list of do’s and don’ts – they’ll probably ask ‘why not’ and then try to find out! Children are more likely to respond more positively if you encourage them to be ‘smart’ or ‘cool’ on the Internet
• Set rules for use – including what to go on and the length of time.
• Don’t forget, it’s not just computers, mobiles phones and tablets have more and more internet facilities on them.
• Keep your machine safe with anti-virus software
• Consider parental controls to restrict/monitor internet access
• Don’t be afraid of confrontation if you find any wrong-doing – but don’t overreact. Sometimes it is just an innocent mistake.