Child Safety on the Internet

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Dear Mrs Fitzsimons
I am writing further to your email below. I will take each of your
questions in turn.

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?
This training is part of the National Curriculum and appears at several
points over key stages 1 to 3. Obviously, the subject is dealt with in a
different way at key stage 1 than at key stage 3. Generally, key stage 1
and 2 children are directed to sites that their teachers want them to
visit. Using search engines is discouraged and in any case inappropriate
responses from search engines are filtered out by SWGfL. At least one
member of staff per school has had some formal safety training. This has
been either through the National Strategy or via the e-safety group of the
Dorset safeguarding Children's Board. Sessions for Parents and carers have
been offered on a saturday morning (last month) in Dorchester and
Bournemouth. All children being allocated laptops through the Home Access
for Targeted Groups must attend e-safety training before they can receive
their laptop from DCC. The (National) Home Access roll-out will require
the suppliers of the kit to provide training. Materials are available from
CEOPS, SWGfL and the National Strategy.
- If yes, who is responsible for delivery and what
accreditations/training have they received? For example, teacher,
CEOP trained ambassador.
As this is part of the national Curriculum, Curriculum Leaders in school
have a responsibility to cover e-safety. In practice, this is usually the
responsibility of the ICT Coordinator in each school. Dorset County
Council has a duty to ensure that materials are available and that
opportunities for teacher/parent/carer training.

The specific programmes used are:
'Think U Know' for key stage 3 and above
'Know it All' for primary schools and 'cybercafe' at key stage 2
'Hectors World' - Key stage 1
'Sexting' education and advice is offered at key stage 4

All members of the children's workforce have the opportunity to take part
in the E-safety Awareness Partnership Sessions.
All those offering direct access to the internet for young people are
offered the Think U Know training package

It is the responsibility of the school/governors to ensure that staff and
young people receive the education/training

Education/training is provided in the first instance by the Officers from
the Safe Schools and Communities Team (partnership between Dorset Police
and the local authorities) who are CEOP Ambassador trained.

- If yes, how often is internet safety training integrated into the
school curriculum, i.e. weekly, monthly etc
Good schools ensure that children are constantly reminded and supervised
when using the internet or sending emails. Instances of cyber-bullying are
rare and not usually perpetrated whilst in school. Most of these instances
happen between school mates whilst out of school. however, when such
instances are reported, they are thoroughly investigated by the school/LA
and where third party websites are concerned (Facebook, Bebo etc..) they
are asked by the LA to remove any material that might be seen as
cyber-bullying. Some third-party sites are supportive (usually when hosted
within Europe or the USA) and others take longer to remove offensive
material. The latest craze of boy and girlfriends sending each other
photos of intimate parts of their body have been flagged up to all
schools. Again, this tends to occur on pupils' phones and they take photos
of themselves and send to their paramour. Dorset police and a small number
of dorset schools are currently writing materials for teachers to use to
combat this craze.
- If no, what steps/timeframes are being taken for implementation?
Not applicable

2. Internet Filtering

- Do the primary and secondary schools within your authority have
internet filtering in place?
Yes
- If yes, what tools do you use? For example Hardware or Software?
Software provided by the South West Grid,
http://www.swgfl.org.uk/Staying-Safe/For...
- If yes, what is the name of your internet filtering supplier and
when was their contract last renewed/due for renewal?
The South West Grid for Learning's current contract for managed service
provision in this area expires mid-2010

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.
The South West Grid solution blocks all illegal sites, schools can then
add to this list should they require. At a local authority level we do
not collect this information and are not aware of any breaches.
- 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.
All internet use is filtered and tracked. However, many pupils are aware
of proxy by-pass sites and are able to get round the filtering if they
know enough about windows. As soon as a new site is used, it is then
blocked by SWGfL. So, filtering is always running to catch up and there is
a period of about 24 hours before these sites can be identified from
student traffic and blocked. Most of the time, as pupils are also
supervised by teachers/TAs whilst in school, this does not occur in large
numbers in school. As with cyber-bullying, most instances of accessing
pornography happen at home. As such the policy of Dorset LA, Dorset police
and SWGfL is one of educating our young people to make them aware of the
danger. If parents and carers simply moved the kit out of pupils' bedrooms
and into a common area, home access to these types of sites could be
controlled better. However, now that there are so many devices which can
surf the net (ps2, X-box 360, Nintendo DS) via wireless connections it is
difficult to bar access to the net at home.

I hope this information is useful to you, and completes your request for
information. If you are not completely satisfied with my response, please
contact me again, or write to the complaints officer at: Dorset County
Council, County Hall, Colliton Park, Dorchester, Dorset DT1 1XJ. Or you
can follow the complaints procedure that can be found on our website
www.dorsetforyou.com at http://212.104.140.176/index.jsp?article...
If your appeal is not resolved to your satisfaction, you have the right to
apply to the Information Commissioner for a decision.

Yours sincerely

Freedom of Information Team
Dorset County Council

Mrs Fitzsimons
<request-21616-b8
dcc515@whatdothey To
know.com> FOI requests at Dorset County
Council <[Dorset County Council request email]>
22/10/2009 12:53 cc

Subject
Freedom of Information request -
Child Safety on the Internet

Dear Sir or Madam,

This request relates to the safe use of the Internet by Primary and
Secondary School pupils in your region.

Resources:
1. The Byron Review, published 27 March 2008,
2. The Byron Review Action Plan, published 24th June 2008.

The resources above relate to the safety and education of children
using the Internet at Home and School, and the responsibility of
government, local and national to ensure that children are educated
and protected whilst doing so.

I hereby request under the Freedom of Information Act full details
of the Internet Safety Actions and Initiatives currently in place
throughout the region.

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?
- If yes, who is responsible for delivery and what
accreditations/training have they received? For example, teacher,
CEOP trained ambassador.
- If yes, how often is internet safety training integrated into the
school curriculum, i.e. weekly, monthly etc
- If no, what steps/timeframes are being taken for implementation?

2. Internet Filtering

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

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.

Yours truly,
Mrs A Fitzsimons

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