e-Safety

Government guidance across the UK highlights the importance of safeguarding pupils from harmful and inappropriate online material (Department for Education, 2019a; Department of Education (Northern Ireland), 2017; Scottish Government, 2017; Welsh Government, 2015). This includes material accessed through devices such as computers, laptops, tablets and mobile phones, as well as platforms such as social media and online games.

A whole school approach to e-safety helps ensure staff, governors and parents are able to teach children about staying safe when using internet technologies. It also helps make sure pupils themselves know how to behave responsibly online.

Hounslow Heath Infant and Nursery School e-Safety Policy

  • We ensure our staff and volunteers are confident in online safety, identifying and responding to concerns
  • We teach children and young people the skills to stay safe online
  • We share helpful advice and resources with parents and carers
  • We develop robust e-safety policies and procedures, IT infrastructure and support
  • We regularly review and improve our e-safety provision.

Hounslow Heath Infant and Nursery School e-Safety Policy Documents

Hounslow Heath Infant and Nursery School Sample e-Safety Incident Report

Internet Use and Digital Images

Hounslow Heath Infant and Nursery School regularly use the Internet for its rich source of teaching material. As well as teachers using the Internet, children may visit different websites themselves to help them gain valuable information on a variety of subjects and to learn more about information and communication technology in general. Children are always supervised when working on computers and access to the Internet is filtered to avoid inappropriate material being accessed from school.

Hounslow Heath Infant and Nursery School take and use both still and moving images of the children within the school for assemblies, school projects or for office use. Where images of children are stored digitally on our computer network alongside full names or addresses, access is restricted and only available to school staff, all of whom have been police checked and cleared to work with children.

Children’s photographs may be used by the school in newsletters or on the school website to celebrate their achievements or to illustrate good work in practice.  They may also be used by media and news gathering associations such as newspapers, television or websites.  Permission for the use of children’s images in these domains is always sought and established through written consent prior to any such publication or broadcast. In no circumstances would children’s photographs be used in a public domain by the school alongside their full names or addresses.

If any parent or carer has any concerns about an issue relating to the use of digitally stored images or how the school uses the Internet with their child, or are unhappy with the present arrangements and do not wish the school to include photographs of their child, please call into the school office so an appointment can be made to discuss these matters further.

Activities Designed to Teach Children about e-Safety

Children are educated in school about the importance of staying safe when using the Internet and e-safety forms an important part of the school curriculum.  You can find information and activities below aimed at teaching children about how to keep safe on the Internet:

For Nursery or Reception children, parents and carers can watch with them and use the resources to discuss the importance of never going onto a computer or tablet without their grown ups permission.

For more information about keeping children safe on the Internet including videos, related games and quizzes, there is a Fronter virtual classroom dedicated to e-safety.  You can access this from here.   Our paid subscription to Espresso Discovery Education also has an e-safety area.  You can access this from the same page.

Safeguarding resources for Parents

Take the NSPCC online training course Keeping children safe online