Child Safety on the Internet

Dear Mrs Fitzsimons

Thank you for your request for information under the Freedom Of Information Act 2000, of which we acknowledge receipt.

Your request has been passed to the appropriate officer to provide a response as soon as possible, and in any event within 20 working days, as required by the Act.

Kind regards

Miriam Townsend, for

Data Management Officer
North Yorkshire County Council
01609 533219 [email address]

Access your county council services online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at www.northyorks.gov.uk.

WARNING

Any opinions or statements expressed in this e-mail are those of the individual and not necessarily those of North Yorkshire County Council.

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North Yorkshire County Council’s computer systems and communications may be monitored to ensure effective operation of the system and for other lawful purposes. All GCSX traffic may be subject to recording and/or monitoring in accordance with relevant legislation.

Although we have endeavoured to ensure that this e-mail and any attachments are free from any virus we would advise you to take any necessary steps to ensure that they are actually virus free.

If you receive an automatic response stating that the recipient is away from the office and you wish to request information under either the Freedom of Information Act, the Data Protection Act or the Environmental Information Regulations please forward your request by e-mail to the Data Management Team ([North Yorkshire County Council request email]) who will process your request.

North Yorkshire County Council.

Dear Mrs Fitzsimons,

Thank you for your Freedom of Information Act 2000. Please find below
the response from North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC).

1. Internet Safety Education provided as part of the school
curriculum.

- Within your schools is there a specific program aimed at teaching
children about staying safe online, including cyber bullying been
integrated into the curriculum?

There is no specific programme. Schools choose how to address this area
based on guidance from NYCC and other sources such as Becta & YHGfL
(Yorkshire and Humberside Grid for Learning). This often forms part of
the PHSCE programme and ICT curriculum as a specific focus. Guidance is
available to schools from both Learning Net (NY schools Intranet) &
Fronter Learning Platform. NYCC has produced sample acceptable use
policies for staff and pupils which schools use. Further e-safety
resources are distributed where and when possible (e.g. Twilight area
e-learning meetings) and e-safety is always discussed during training.
All ICT newsletters and updates and the ICT blog have e-safety sections.
Finally e-safety is part of North Yorkshire's Learning Platform
self-evaluation form.

- If yes, who is responsible for delivery and what
accreditations/training have they received? For example, teacher, CEOP
trained ambassador.

E-safety is a responsibility of all teachers who use online resources
and also part of the ICT scheme of work. ‘Think You Know' sessions run
by local CEOP trained ambassadors have been made available to staff e.g.
recent session for ICT Associate teachers + some police officers. In
addition, all Fronter VLE courses have an e-safety element and area
twilight sessions have included ‘Know it all’ input.

- If yes, how often is internet safety training integrated into the
school curriculum, i.e. weekly, monthly etc

Unfortunately we are unable to provide a definitive answer at moment.
NYCC is currently carrying out an audit of schools which enquires into
e-safety procedures. However, all schools have e-safety guidance
displayed in ICT suites and monitoring evidence indicates that it is
frequently referred to in lessons.

2. Internet Filtering

- Do the primary and secondary schools within your authority have
internet filtering in place?

North Yorkshire schools are independent entities in terms of their
financial arrangements. The nature of local financial management in
schools means that they are able to operate to their own requirements in
a significant number of areas, including ICT. As such, there is no need
for a school to approach NYCC if they are undertaking any sort of ICT
implementation, nor are they required to report such an installation.

Therefore, while the majority of schools use the NYCC internet service,
there are a group
of 31 schools who make their own arrangements and take responsibility
for their own filtering. In terms of these schools, they will need to be
contacted individually for details, as NYCC does not hold this
information.

- If yes, what tools do you use? For example Hardware or Software?
- If yes, what is the name of your internet filtering supplier and when
was their contract last renewed/due for renewal?

In the case of those 350 schools using the NYCC internet services, all
are subject to a filtering system when internet browsing. The system is
a combination of hardware and software solutions provided and managed by
Bull Information Systems Ltd. The contract with Bull dates from
November 2006 and is due for renewal within the next 12 months.

3. Internet Filtering Breaches

- Have any of the Schools within the past 24 months experienced a
breach of Internet Filtering where children were able to access
pornography or Indecent images. Please provide details of School
Type(Primary or Secondary), Date of Breach and Type of Unsuitable
material accessed.
- If a breach of security occurred how was your authority notified? For
example
, by a parent, by the school, through an automated alert provided
by hardware/software supplier.

No internet filtering system can ever be 100% effective as literally
thousands of new sites become available every week. In the event that
such material was accessed, we would be alerted by the school and the
site immediately blocked. Within the last 24 months we have logged 10
incidents of children gaining access to pornography or indecent images
(see attached list). If a school asks for a website to be blocked we do
not necessarily record who accessed it (staff/students etc.). The
attached list is therefore those calls logged where specific mention is
made of children accessing the material.

I hope this information is useful to you and if you have any further
enquiries please do not hesitate to contact us,

Louise Jackson
Information Governance Support Officer
North Yorkshire County Council

Access your county council services online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at www.northyorks.gov.uk.

WARNING

Any opinions or statements expressed in this e-mail are those of the individual and not necessarily those of North Yorkshire County Council.

This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are confidential and solely for the use of the intended recipient. If you receive this in error, please do not disclose any information to anyone, notify the sender at the above address and then destroy all copies.

North Yorkshire County Council’s computer systems and communications may be monitored to ensure effective operation of the system and for other lawful purposes. All GCSX traffic may be subject to recording and/or monitoring in accordance with relevant legislation.

Although we have endeavoured to ensure that this e-mail and any attachments are free from any virus we would advise you to take any necessary steps to ensure that they are actually virus free.

If you receive an automatic response stating that the recipient is away from the office and you wish to request information under either the Freedom of Information Act, the Data Protection Act or the Environmental Information Regulations please forward your request by e-mail to the Data Management Team ([North Yorkshire County Council request email]) who will process your request.

North Yorkshire County Council.