E-Safety

You are no doubt aware that, as part of the pupils’ curriculum enhancement and the development of ICT skills, High Down schools provide supervised access to the Internet.  Pupils are regularly given opportunities to use websites designed to support their learning.  They are also taught research and evaluation skills to help them use the Internet effectively and efficiently.

Although there have been concerns about pupils having access to undesirable materials, we have taken positive steps to deal with that possibility.  Our broadband Internet service provider, The South-West Grid for Learning, is a consortium of the region’s Local Education Authorities and operates a filtering system that restricts access to inappropriate materials.  All of our computers are in public view and, as stated above, access is supervised.   Children are also taught the SMART rules for using the Internet, in order to help them to stay safe wherever they use the Internet.

The SMART rules:

SAFE              –       stay safe, don’t give out personal information

MEETING        –      only meet someone from the internet with your parents

ACCEPTING     –      emails, IM, texts from strangers can lead to problems

RELIABLE       –      information on the Internet may not be true

TELL              –       a trusted adult if anything online makes you feel uncomfortable

We are, as you can see, taking our responsibilities in this area very seriously indeed.  To this end, we would ask that you read the ‘Pupil Internet Agreement’ with your child.  Our full Internet Policy can also be found on the Policy section of this website.

Swiggle                                 

In High Down we make sure all of our internet searches are done through the ‘Swiggle’ search engine.

This ensures that the children are accessing filtered, child friendly resources for their needs in and out of school.

Digital Leaders 2022-23

In each class at the junior school we have our ‘Digital Leaders’.

Year 3 – Freddie, Matilda, Hatty, Jake, Millie and Vinnie

Year 4 – Elena, Isabella, Nissy, Noah, Theo and Teddie

Year 5 – Jacob, Nadia, George B, George C, Henry and Emelia

Year 6 – Haydn, Adam, Nia, Lucy, Ailsa and Richard

It is their job to take the views of the class and report back to the other leaders at designated meetings.

The digital leaders have produced an informative video explaining how to stay safe online. Please click here to link to our ‘top tips for keeping safe online’.

E-safety Resources

We  wanted to highlight some very useful e-safety resources available for parents and hope you will explore some of the sites in the information below:

Internet Matters provides useful up to date support for parents