Online Safety and Ofsted's Common Inspection Framework
A guest blog from Alan McKenzie @esafety-adviser
You will be aware that Sept 15 has seen a renewed focus from Ofsted on safeguarding, including e-safety under the Common Inspection Framework.
Specifically, this is ‘inspecting safeguarding in early years, education and skills from Sept 2015.’ First and foremost this re-iterates the fact that e-safety is not a technology issue; from the perspective of a school it is primarily a safeguarding matter. Now when I say e-safety, Ofsted has changed e-safety to ‘online safety’ to reflect issues that go beyond the scope of safeguarding.
Similarly, the term cyber-bullying has been replaced with ‘online bullying’. There is no doubt that inspectors are much more focussed in regards to e-safety. Going back a couple of years you wouldn’t see many references to e-safety within Ofsted reports, but now it is becoming increasingly common, not just in schools but in other settings such as childminders.