At St Crispin’s we recognise the increasing role that the Internet plays in everyday life. As an educational establishment we need to develop and respond to the impact of the Internet  and advancing technologies. Less than ten years ago , we were asking whether the Internet should be used in all schools. Now all of our pupils are younger than the Internet and the World Wide Web.

The purpose of Internet use in our school is to raise educational standards, to promote pupil achievement, to support the professional work of staff and to enhance the school’s management information and business administration systems.

Internet use is part of the statutory curriculum and a necessary tool for learning.

Pupil E Safety
 
We recognise that our pupils may use the Internet widely outside school and will need to learn how to take care of their own safety and security.

As a school we will endeavour to demonstrate what to do if they experience material that is inappropriate e.g. to close the page and report the incident immediately to the teacher.

The school Internet access will be designed expressly for pupil use and will include filtering appropriate to the age of the children.

Pupils will be taught what Internet use is acceptable and what is not and given clear objectives for Internet use which will be displayed in each classroom.

Staff E Safety

Staff should guide pupils in on-line activities that will support the learning outcomes planned for the pupils age and maturity.

In a perfect world, inappropriate material would not be visible to pupils using the Web but this is not easy to achieve and cannot be guaranteed.

If staff or pupils discover unsuitable sites, the URL (address), time, date and content must be reported to the Internet Service Provider via the I.C.T. Co-ordinator.

Schools should ensure that the use of Internet derived materials by staff and by pupils complies with copyright law.

All staff and Governors will be given the School E Safety Policy and its importance explained.

Whole School E Safety

Email is an essential means of communication for both staff and pupils. We know that email use can bring significant educational benefits and interesting projects between neighbouring villages and even continents can be created. Pupils will only use whole class email addresses  as part of class projects.

Our school has created an excellent web site that we hope inspires our pupils and parents to celebrate pupils work, promote our school and publish resources for projects or homework.

At present it is the school policy not to show images of the children on our web site. This may change in the future but at present this is the current wish of some of our parents. Pupils full names should not appear on the web site either.

Filtering and Internet Access

In our school, pupils will only use the Internet when supervised and in accordance with our school e-safety rules which are displayed in each classroom. The school will work in partnership with the LA, Becta and the Internet Service Provider to ensure filtering systems are as effective as possible.

If staff or pupils discover unsuitable sites, the URL, time and date must be reported to the Internet Service Provider, Headteacher and I.C.T co-ordinator.

At the beginning of each academic year staff, parents and pupils will be required to sign to consent to e-safety rules.

The school will take all reasonable precautions to ensure that users access only appropriate material by teacher led demonstrations accessing web sites that have already been checked and approved by staff. However due to the international scale and linked nature of Internet content, it is not possible to guarantee that any unsuitable material will never appear on a school computer. Neither the school nor the K.C.C. can accept liability for the the material accessed, or any consequences of Internet access.

Information Systems

All personal data will be recorded, processed, transferred and made available according to the Data Protection Act 1998.

The security of the school information systems will be reviewed regularly and virus protection will be installed and updated regularly.

The contact details on the school web site will be the school address, email and telephone number. Staff or pupils personal information will not be published.


For further information on how to keep children safe on line please refer to the following web sites

BBC Chat Guide
www.bbc.co.uk/chatguide

Kidsmart
www.kidsmart.org.uk




This policy will be reviewed and discussed with staff in the summer term of each year.