E-Safety

The internet is fantastic! We all use it to search for information, discover things, shop, keep in touch with friends and generally surf around. But, we need to treat this freedom with caution, as danger lurks in dark corners of the internet.
Young people at school today are ‘digital natives’, meaning they have grown up with the internet, iPhones, laptops and social media such as Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Bebo, You Tube, Flickr and Last FM. They routinely text, email, update their status and search for information, as hours spent watching TV decreases. Parents, teachers and carers must keep up with this change, and put measures in place to protect students.

Here at The Mount internet use is carefully controlled. Web sites containing harmful and inappropriate words are filtered out, and there is an ever increasing list of blocked sites. We encourage the use of the school email, as the content can be filtered too. ‘E-safety’ is taught at the start of each year, and students are made aware of the dangers they could face such as –

  • Inappropriate images or content.
  • Sexual predators, in chat rooms & email.
  • Threatening or upsetting ’hate mails’.
  • Humiliating and abusive text or video messages.
  • Setting up fake profiles.
  • Hacking of profiles.
  • Disclosure of personal information.
  • Piracy of software, music or video.
  • Spyware and viruses.
  • Excessive commercialism (adverts and product-related websites).
  • Illegal downloads, such as copyright-protected music files.

Students are alerted to the fact that everything they post online can be stored and used against them later. There have been well publicised cases of people losing their job after posting comments and photos of themselves online.

Advice for students:

  • Don’t publish identifying information.
  • Pick a user name that doesn’t include any personal information.
  • Set up a separate email account that doesn’t use your real name and use that to register and receive mail from the site. That way if you want to shut down your connection, you can simply stop using that mail account.
  • Use a strong password (at least 8 characters; mixture of lower case letters, upper case letters, numbers and symbols).
  • Keep passwords safe, and change them regularly.
  • Keep your profile closed.
  • Only allow friends to view your profile.
  • What goes online stays online. Don’t say anything or publish pictures that might cause you embarrassment later. If you wouldn’t say it to your parents, don’t say it online!
  • Be on your guard.
  • Talk to parents/carers if you feel uncomfortable.
  • Save or print evidence.

Advice for parents

  • Set ground rules. Discuss. Continue to talk.
  • Limit the amount of time online.
  • Use ISP filtering.
  • Set up a family e-mail account for registering on websites, competitions etc.
  • Monitor online activity (recently visited sites, click the History button).
  • Software for filtering isn’t foolproof - combine with supervision.
  • Check temporary files (open Internet Explorer and select Internet Options, on the General tab under Temporary Internet Files, click the Settings button and the click View Files).
  • Contact CEOP or the police if you suspect grooming.

CEOP (Child Exploitation & Online Protection) is dedicated to eradicating the sexual abuse of children, and is affiliated to the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA).

Safer search engines:

Further information and advice: