Is Your School's Filter Appropriate?

From September 2016, the DfE's most recent changes to 'Keeping Children Safe in Education' will come into force.

Schools will now be required to "ensure that appropriate filtering and appropriate monitoring systems are in place. Children should not be able to access harmful or inappropriate material from the school or college's IT system." The document then goes on to say that schools will need to "be careful" that 'over-blocking' does not lead to unreasonable restrictions as to what children can be taught with regards to online teaching and safeguarding". 

 

Furthermore, under the Prevent Duty all Schools (and registered childcare providers) in England and Wales are required “to ensure children are safe from terrorist and extremist material when accessing the internet in school, including by establishing appropriate levels of filtering" and that schools “assess the risk of [their] children being drawn into terrorism, including support for extremist ideas that are part of terrorist ideology”.

So how do you know if your school or college's filtering and monitoring arrangements are 'appropriate'?

If you use E2BN Protex Filter appropriate-filtering-response-e2bn explains how and why Protex is an 'appropriate' filter.

For further information on what to look for if you use a different filtering product see this document from Colleagues at the UKSafer Internet Centre. AppropriateFilteringforEducationsettings-March-2016-v2  Guidance on Appropriate Monitoring is also available here Appropriate-Monitoring-for-Schools

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