Mellis Church of England Primary School - 'To Be Our Best'

The Internet and digital technology has revolutionised education over the last decade, and this trend is set to accelerate. Our key challenge is to harness these opportunities for learning whilst ensuring our children, parents and staff are aware of the potential risks.

Please see below to review the school's policy on Online-Safety. 

You may also find this advice useful when discussing the subject of Online Safety with your child.

Your child has access to an Online Safety Community Page on their Learning Platform homepages.

You may also be interested to know that the School is significantly advancing its ability to monitor its internet filtering abilities in line with the most recent Keeping Children Safe in Education recommendations. The School is currently implementing the Smoothwall filtering and monitoring application which uses AI and human analysis to identify inappropriate or dangerous searches online on school equipment. This will increase our awareness of possible issues and our ability to positive address them.

If you are concerned about sommething that has happedned to you or your child online, then you can report this to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Website (CEOP). Click on this image to take you to the right page of the CEOP website.

The Vodaphone Company publish an excellent guide to supporting your child with their Online Safety.

Please click here to go to their website, or click the picture below to download a PDF of their Digital Parenting magazine.

Screen Time: Online safety, mobile phones and social media use by children

There is – as you may have read or seen in the press and media - increasing concerns about the use of mobile phones, tablets, screens in general and social media on the brain development of younger children. This is a fast-moving debate, but there is a growing body of evidence that over-use of the devices is having a longer-term impact on children’s development. Such devices of course do have many fantastic advantages and benefits, and they are a key part of modern life, but as with all things in life balance is important – and particularly where children are concerned. You may be interested to see this link below for a summary of the concerns below.

Houses of Parliament Education Committee Inquiry on Screen Time: Impacts on Education and Wellbeing.

For some practical advice as parents, download these posters from National Online Safety.

Toddlers and Screentime

Screen Addiction

Involving Parents and Pupils in Online Safety

As a result of feedback from previous surveys, the School has started a series of occasional email updates on different online safety issues: recent ones include:

• guidance on age recommendations for social media networks
• awareness on social media elements of popular games
•  the effect of adult online habits on children's online habits
• Information on the effects of 'screen time' and how to effectively manage your child's use of screen based technology

Please click on these links below to find out more on keeping safe online.

National Online Safety 

This link takes you to a page with many different PDF advice pages for parents on a range of devices, apps and games.

Child Exploitation and Online Protection Website (CEOP)

Childnet

BBC Stay Safe

Childline

Advice on Facebook Privacy Settings