Appropriate Filtering & Monitoring
The use of technology has become a significant component of many safeguarding issues. Most of these issues occur outside of school but we are required to "ensure appropriate filters and appropriate monitoring systems are in place and to regularly review their effectiveness," as stated in the Department for Education's statutory document, Keeping Children Safe in Education.
In addition to this, an effective approach to Online Safety empowers a school to protect and educate the whole school community in their use of technology and establishes mechanisms to identify, intervene and escalate any incident where appropriate.
Westdene Primary School uses an internet filtering system called Smoothwall. This is supplied by our broadband provider, Schools ICT. We also use computer monitoring software called Classroom Cloud.
Please see below for some FAQs about how we filter and monitor at our school:
What is the definition of appropriate filtering?
For a detailed explanation of appropriate filtering, see here.
What is the definition of appropriate monitoring?
For a detailed explanation of appropriate monitoring, see here.
What does the internet filter do?
For a detailed explanation of how the Smoothwall internet filter works, see here.
How does the Smoothwall Filter identify an issue?
Smoothwall filtering has predefined categories and searches that are automatically blocked. This is updated regularly and the 'Block/Allow Lists' can also adjusted manually by approved and trained school admin users, where it is required.
Some of the categories used are:
Drugs, extremism, discrimination, gambling, hate speech, malware/hacking, pornography, piracy/copyright, self harm and violence. This is not an exhaustive list.
What happens if a search is deemed to be inappropriate?
The user will see a screen (block page) telling them that the content is blocked and will not allow them to progress. If required, the block page contains information that helps the school to identify the name, date, time, IP address, username and location of the user receiving the block page.
Who monitors Smoothwall Filter?
The system is set up to email the Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL), our Assitant headteacher and our Online Safety Lead.
What does the monitoring software do?
For a detailed explanation of how the Classroom Cloud monitor works, see here.
Department for Education Digital Standards for Appropriate Filtering & Monitoring
This is how we meet the requirements:
You should identify and assign roles and responsibilities to manage your filtering and monitor.
We have assigned roles as outlined in the standards document, including a Link Governor, Designated Safeguarding Lead and member of the Senior Leadership team.
You should review your filtering and monitoring provision at least annually.
We undertake an annual review of filtering and monitoring using a comprehensive checklist provided by the London Grid for Learning and we test the filtering using the testfiltering.com website in the Autumn and Summer terms.
Your filtering system should block harmful and inappropriate content, without unreasonably impacting teaching and learning.
In addition, the Smoothwall filter uses a list of cageories and keywords that are managed by a trained member of the SLT. It is important that some aspects of the filtering can be adjusted to avoid overblocking words such as 'sex' or 'drugs' that maybe required for the age appropriate teaching of these subjects.
You should have effective monitoring strategies that meet the safeguarding needs of your school or college.
We monitor internet and computer use in a variety of ways. We use the Classroom Cloud monitoring software in addition to receiving instant alerts and visually monitoring children as they use computers. This includes iPads and Chromebooks.
