Online safety should form a fundamental part of schools’ and colleges’ safeguarding and child protection measures. By taking a whole school approach to online safety, you can help make sure all staff, governors, volunteers and parents know how they can help keep children safe online.
Government guidance for schools across the UK highlights the importance of safeguarding children and young people online.
Schools have a dual responsibility when it comes to online safety: to ensure the school's online procedures keep children and young people safe, and to teach them about online safety, in and outside of school.
Your school should foster an open environment in which children and young people are encouraged to ask any questions and participate in an ongoing conversation about the benefits and risks of the online world.
Our information and resources will help you to:
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Take our elearning course on online safety and learn about how children and young people use existing technology, the risks involved and how to protect them from harmful content online in your context.
Includes modules on cyberbullying, radicalisation and extremism, grooming and more.
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All schools and colleges should have robust e-safety policies and procedures that set out how to safeguard against and respond to online safety incidents. These must be understood and followed by all staff, volunteers, children and visitors.
Your online safety policies and procedures must follow the legislation and guidance for child protection in schools across the UK and for online safety.
They should apply to all devices with the capacity to connect to the internet and transfer data. This includes internet-connected toys, tablets, smart TVs and watches, phones, laptops and computers.
Schools in England, Wales and Scotland should also follow the Prevent duty’s statutory guidance regarding online safety and radicalisation (Home Office, 2023).
Our online safety policy statement template will help you create an e-safety policy that staff, students and parents and carers should follow. This applies to all online platforms, including social media and online games.
The online safety agreement template can be used to set rules for how children should appropriately use the internet.
Follow your online safety policies and procedures and your organisational child protection procedures. Organisations that work with children and families must have safeguarding policies and procedures in place.
Technology and the online environment are constantly changing. Online safety policies and procedures should be regularly reviewed and updated as part of your overarching safeguarding measures.
A whole school approach to reviewing these arrangements, including students, staff, volunteers and parents is good practice. Updated policies should be shared with and understood by all staff, children, and parents and carers, highlighting what has changed.
Our free self-assessment tool helps schools develop and update their safeguarding policies and procedures and meet statutory and recommended safeguarding practices.
Our online safety elearning course, developed in association with the child protection unit of the National Crime Agency, CEOP, provides information and resources to help you assess and improve your school’s approach to online safety.
You can also read our learning from case reviews briefing on online harm and abuse to find out how you can improve online safety.
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Schools must have strong IT infrastructure and data protection practices. Make sure your school:
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) provides advice on data protection for organisations across the UK (ICO, n.d.), whilst the Department for Education (DfE) provides further, specific guidance for schools in England (DfE, 2023a).
Putting in place effective filtering and monitoring systems are a way schools can help safeguard children from harmful online material and provide a safe environment for learning. Filtering restricts access to online content, while monitoring allows user activity to be reviewed.
The UK Safer Internet Centre provides guidance for education settings across the UK about online filtering and monitoring (UK Safer Internet Centre, 2023).
In England, the Department for Education’s (DfE’s) filtering and monitoring standards for schools and colleges provides further detail about the systems schools should have in place, including:
The DfE statutory safeguarding and child protection guidance for schools in England, Keeping children safe in education (KCSIE) (DfE, 2023c) makes it clear that:
In Northern Ireland, the online safety strategy and action plan (Department of Health, 2021) states that the Education Authority (EA), via C2K, provide the infrastructure to support the use of ICT in schools, including a tiered filtering system.
In Scotland, the Scottish Government’s national action plan for internet safety for children and young people states that schools are expected to use filtering as a means of restricting access to harmful content (Scottish Government, 2017).
In Wales, the Welsh Government’s web filtering standards provide advice on the types of websites that should, and should not, be available to pupils (Welsh Government, 2021a).
If you decide to use online consent forms to record consent for children to take part in activities, these should be stored in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018. Parents and carers should be informed of how this information will be stored and used.
Things to consider include:
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Alongside ensuring your e-safety arrangements are robust, it's essential that schools and colleges teach children and young people about staying safe online – both in and outside of school.
Teachers should have ongoing conversations with children about the benefits and risks of the internet and create an open environment for children and young people to ask questions and raise any concerns.
Teaching online safety should not be restricted to IT and computing lessons. Embedding key messages about staying safe online throughout the curriculum helps ensure that children of all ages are taught online safety skills.
We've developed a range of engaging and age appropriate teaching resources to help teachers deliver e-safety lessons and create an ongoing conversation with children and young people about online safety.
We developed a school pack about online bullying for 11-16-year-olds with the Anti-Bullying Alliance and Diana Award. The resources can be adapted for use in lessons, assemblies or in school councils and focus on what children and young people can do if they witness cyberbullying.
A set of lesson plans, films and activities are available through It's Not OK for children and young people aged 11 and over. These reinforce the importance of building and maintaining positive relationships and how to recognise and respond to inappropriate behaviour. They cover topics including online safety, grooming and sexting.
Our Talk Relationships service supports secondary schools to deliver inclusive sex and relationships education. Alongside elearning courses and a dedicated helpline, it includes age-appropriate lesson plans on a range of relevant topics, including: safer online friendships and relationships, sharing of nudes and pornography
Children and young people with special educational needs, additional needs and disabilities may require different teaching methods to learn about online safety, such as:
(Assiter, Avery and The Education People, 2018a).
You may want to make use of external expertise to supplement and reinforce your school's online safety education.
Visitors with the right expertise can provide online safety information to children and young people, staff, volunteers and parents and carers.
When used as part of a well-planned, broad and balanced curriculum, this can make a significant contribution towards children's, staff and parents' online safety awareness.
Use visitors to enhance your approach to online safety, rather than deliver it in full. External expertise can help revisit and build on learning as part of a whole school approach to online safety. Visits should be part of longer term planning rather than only used for 'one-off' sessions in response to online safety incidents.
(UK Council for Child Internet Safety, 2022).
We’ve created resources that will help you talk to children about online safety topics. They can help you respond to disclosures, difficult conversations that may arise and any online safety incidents, discoveries, allegations and concerns.
Our poster and animation provide tips to help you ensure children always feel listened to. Both are available in English and Welsh.
Find out how to prepare and have a conversation with children and young people you work or volunteer with about difficult, upsetting or sensitive topics.
Get advice on what to do if you need to help a young person who has received or sent an explicit image, video or message.
Our elearning course on online safety will help you ensure that staff and volunteers are aware of the risks that children and young people can be exposed to online and know how to respond appropriately.
Our elearning course will help professionals to respond to incidents of nude image sharing or sexting.
In England, the Department for Education (DfE) has published non-statutory guidance on teaching online safety in school (DfE, 2023d).
The DfE has also published non-statutory guidance for schools and colleges on harmful online challenges and online hoaxes (DfE, 2021).
The Welsh Government has online safety resources for schools (Welsh Government, 2021b).
The UK Council for Internet Safety (UKCIS) provides a range of guidance and resources about online safety, including guidance for education settings on sharing nudes and semi nudes (UKCIS, 2020).
If a child or young person needs confidential help and advice, direct them to Childline.
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Social media and social networking plays an important role in many young people’s lives – it’s how they keep in touch and communicate with friends, family and schoolmates.
Personal mobile devices mean that children and young people can be active on social media anywhere and at any time. This can provide new opportunities for children and young people to learn and express themselves. But it can also present risks, including:
These issues should be tackled in the classroom and as part of an open, ongoing conversation about online safety, so children can learn about how to stay safe on social media.
Some schools use social media to engage children in in the classroom, celebrate student's work, or circulate news, activities and events to parents and carers.
Schools should always consider the safety implications when using social media with children and young people.
Teachers shouldn’t use their personal accounts to communicate with or follow pupils and students on social media. This should be included in your online behaviour policy and staff code of conduct.
Your code of conduct for staff and volunteers should include clear statements that staff should:
Our podcast episode on enhancing online safety for children includes advice on digital footprints and personal and professional boundaries.
Download our template behaviour code for adults working with children to help create a policy that includes rules on using social media.
See more guidance for schools on how to prevent cyberbullying and teach children about it in lessons.
Read about what to do if a young person tells you they've been involved in sharing nudes, how to write policies and procedures around this and where to report or share your concerns.
Find out more about keeping children safe on social media and in online communities, including how to assess and mitigate risk on online platforms, writing policies and procedures and how to recognise and respond to concerns
Read about the steps you need to take when taking, sharing or storing images or films of children. Includes information on livestreaming and using video conferencing software.
The Government also has guidance on how you can recognise and respond to online radicalisation via social media (Department for Education (DfE) and Home Office, 2015).
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Online safety can be daunting for parents and carers, as they may have concerns about their understanding of the topic and their knowledge of latest developments. Schools should remind parents that e-safety is more about their parenting and communication skills than technology.
Parents and carers should understand that it isn’t enough to protect children from online harms by simply banning sites or installing firewalls and filters.
Encourage parents and carers to maintain an open and ongoing discussion about online safety at home/as a family/with their children.
(Assiter, Avery and The Education People, 2018b).
You can involve parents and carers by:
More advice about online safety and how to keep children safe online can be found on the NSPCC website. This includes information on social media, online gaming, parental controls, sharing nudes, livestreaming, harmful content and online reporting.
The UK Safer Internet Centre has guidance for parents and carers on online safety over the summer holidays (UK Safer Internet Centre, 2018).
Assiter, A., Avery, R. and The Education People (2018b), Engaging families in online safety: guidance for educational settings (PDF). Kent: Kent County Council.
Department for Education (DfE) and Home Office (2015) The use of social media for online radicalisation. [Accessed 15/07/2021].
Department for Education (2021) Harmful online challenges and online hoaxes. [Accessed 15/07/2021].
Department for Education (DfE) (2023a) Data protection in schools. [Accessed 12/07/2023].
Department for Education (DfE) (2023d) Teaching online safety in school. [Accessed 18/04/2023].
Department of Health (2021) Online safety strategy and action plan. [Accessed 12/07/2023].
Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) (n.d.) UK GDPR guidance and resources. [Accessed 12/07/2023].
UK Council for Child Internet Safety (2018) Using external visitors to support online safety (PDF). [London]: UK Council for Child Internet safety].
Welsh Government (2021b) Keeping safe online. [Accessed 25/07/2023].
We have a range of training courses to help your school keep children safe.
If a child or young person has disclosed that they've experienced abuse online, or you've noticed something worrying, find out how to respond appropriately.
Learn about setting up an online community or new social media platform. Includes assessing and addressing risk and ensuring you have appropriate moderation and hosting in place.
Guidance setting out the safeguarding responsibilities of schools in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.