E-Safety

At Bishop Barrington School we pride ourselves on taking a lead in teaching our students how to use new technology safely. We have an E-safety Co-ordinator in school who monitors breaches of e-safety together with the safeguarding team whose work is ongoing on implementing new initiatives to increase student, parent and staff awareness of issues relating to online safety.

All KS3 and KS4 students will receive a number of lessons this year as part of the Computer Studies curriculum about how to stay safe in a digital world. These will be organised around discreet content within lessons alongside some standalone e-safety lessons. Students in Key Stage 4 cover the elements of e-safety embedded into their level 2 qualification. This year the topics covered in Key Stage 3 are as follows:

• Year 7:
  • Keeping your password safe. 
  • Email netiquette (netiquette is the social code of the internet). 
  • Keeping images safe and secure – what images are suitable to post online/share. 
  • Social Networking – how to keep your personal data safe. 
  • Who are you talking to online? Are people always who they appear to be? 
  • Viruses, worms, Trojans – what can they do? How are they transferred? 

• Year 8:
  • Is information reliable and trustworthy? How can we tell? 
  • What is cloud computing? Is it secure? 
  • Webcams – how can they be used safely? What are the risks? 

• Year 9:
  • What is a secure password? 
  • What is cloud computing? Is it secure? 
  • How is information transferred around a network? How is data kept secure?
  • Malware – viruses, worms, trojans, spyware, adware.
  • Reliable and trustworthy websites.

At KS3 and KS4 in Personal Development lessons students also learn about issues such as Digital Footprint, Fraping, Sexting, Sex and Social Media, Cyberbullying and Safety Online to name but a few.

We always focus particularly on e-safety during National Anti-Bullying week in November each year and take the opportunity to highlight all aspects of internet security with students during Safer Internet Day in February.

We continually update our resources and our planning in line with the governments safeguarding requirements. We receive regular updates on current e-safety issues in the press from the LA and CEOP and respond to these by informing the students in assemblies or by adding additional information in PD or Computer Studies lessons, obviously this is very much dependent on the messages we have to impart to our students.