It is important to note that students may access the internet from a number of different devices including: mobile phone, laptops, home computers, tablets, iPads and games consoles as well as some smart TVs.
Within school students are protected by an internal filtering system which prevents them accessing inappropriate sites and they have all signed the home school agreement and acceptable user policy which outline the appropriate use of IT within school and at home. But it is important that parents and guardians take appropriate precautions to protect their children at home. These include: filtering, dialogue and monitoring.
The most effective way to ensure your son / daughter is a safe as possible at home is to ensure that you have parental controls / filter setup on your home wireless network and son / daughters mobile phone. This can be done by contacting your ISP (internet service provider) for example BT, Virgin or Sky, or in some cases via your wireless router.
It is also possible to setup filtering on your internet at home through your existing router by signing up to OpenDNS the worlds leading DNS service which is totally free for home use and can free your home network of internet outages and make your internet faster.
Find out more about OpenDNS by visiting www.opendns.com
It is also really important that you can talk to your son / daughter about their use of the internet and how to use it safely. We run parent workshops, in conjunction with SWGfL (South West Grid for Learning) and Avon and Somerset Police each year, to help parents and carers to develop their understanding of eSafety.
In addition you can find out more about esafety by visiting the websites below.
One of the key ways to ensure your son / daughter uses the internet appropriately is to encourage them to go online in family areas of the house rather than alone in their bedrooms so that you can talk about their internet activity and monitor what they are doing in a non threatening way.
Writhlington School recommends the following in regard to the appropriate use of technology at home:
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