Home Our School Governance Who's who? Key Information Information for parents Newsletters e-safety Term Dates School Dinners Parent Mail Clubs Parental Survey School Uniform School Day Parent Workshops Helping your child to learn Curriculum and assessment Staff area Vacancies Woody's breakfast and after school provision The Nursery at Westwood Academy Facilities hire e-safety What is e-safety? At Westwood Academy, e-safety refers to the responsibility of ensuring that children learn how to stay safe when using technology. We take it really seriously! As well as being most obviously featured in our computing curriculum, it forms part of every interaction we have with technology – which at Westwood is extensive – we have lots of devices used across the curriculum to enrich the learning experiences of the pupils. There is a need for e-safety awareness to be developed among the whole learning community: in school, pupils are able to elaborate on the types of e-safety threats that exist and how to deal with them. There is also a need for awareness outside of school where the access to technology is potentially less structured or filtered. To support and begin to build this awareness, the school ran a well attended “e-safety for parents” workshop in May 2016 in collaboration with ICT inspires. It was a great session which received extremely positive feedback from the many parents who attended. Parent e-safety workshop: key messages to share with children. Never share anything with anyone they wouldn’t want you or their teacher to see. THINK BEFORE YOU POST. Make sure they know who to talk to if they feel uncomfortable, upset or worried. Never communicate online with anyone they don’t know AND TRUST in the real world. Keep personal information private – If they are not sure CHECK with you or a teacher. Don’t send anything to anyone you wouldn’t want to receive yourself and don’t share other people’s content. Top Tips for parents. Set boundaries in the online world just as you would in the real world. Be involved in your child’s online life. Keep up-to-date with your child’s development online. Consider the use of parental controls on devices that link to the internet, such as the TV, laptops, computers, games consoles and mobile phones. Emphasise that not everyone is who they say they are. Know what connects to the internet and how. Watch Thinkuknow films to learn more. Get the technology out of the bedroom! PEGI ratings advise which games are appropriate for which age: they protect children from extreme scenes in many cases, so TAKE NOTICE of them. Of course, if you have any concerns about the safety of any pupils at the school, you can alert us using the red button on the school’s home page or by contacting the school and asking for one of the designated child protection officers. Safe Internet Use. It is recommended to use google safesearch and locking the youtube filter: www.google.co.uk/familysafety BT, Sky, Virgin Media and TalkTalk all offer free filtering services. You can set up filtered searching on all devices in your home using http://www.opendns.com/parental-controls or Qustodio, or by purchasing Net Nanny. Limit Computer Access. Search for Windows Parental Controls – this can help set time limits on children’s computer use and help them to be safer online. Facebook. Search for Family Safety Centre – learn how to adjust settings to create more security, or check out this parent’s guide to facebook. Mobile Phones and Games Consoles. Search for parental controls for the device name within google. Mobile guidance and control of your children’s devices can be found here. Other things to consider: – Content. Be careful which sites the rest of the family visit Tell your child not to fill out online forms Talk to your children about validity of sites when researching – anyone can create a website Social networking/chat rooms/Gaming. talk to your child(ren) about digital privacy talk to your child(ren) about ‘friends’ – someone they ‘meet online’ is NOT a friend decide what PEGI rating games you will allow them to play and be aware that extreme gaming may be a safeguarding issue (e.g. 16+, 18+ games) Cyberbullying. talk to your children about cyberbullying and cyberbullies teach them how to report the cyberbullying to the school, service provider orpolice and what evidence is helpful Mobile phone: Know how your child’s phone works. Does it have GPS tagging to photos? Does it have parental controls? (e.g. Can you block them from uploading images if necessary). Does it access the internet? Can it upload images? Resilience. encourage and enable your child(ren) to make good choices demonstrate your own knowledge and understanding of the world get involved make sure they know what to do and who to go to if they need help online/offline help your child(ren) to understand that these worlds are not so different – rules that apply offline in the real world apply to the online world too Moderation. help your child(ren) to understand why they should switch off occasionally (and definitely at least 30 minutes before bed) Further Resources. All of these resources have been identified as being brilliant to give further guidance on e-safety. MOMO Online Safety Guide for Parents Pokemon Go advice for parents Vodafone Digital Parenting Parents in the Digital Age Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre The Parent Zone Parent Info Get Safe Online Internet Matters Childnet International Parental Controls ParentPort ThinkuKnow UK Safer Internet Centre Connect Safely BBC Webwise Copyright © 2021 Westwood Academy Website by Insight and Site-Street View Full Site Email: admin@westwoodacademy.org Tel: 01702 559467 Registered Office: Westwood Academy, Beresford Close, Hadleigh, Essex. SS7 2SU. Company No. 07681226