We hope you and your pupils are all well during this really busy term (although which term isn't!?). We too have been busy getting our training offer for the next academic year ready, so read on to find out more. In this newsletter, we are also sharing some advice about filtering.
2024-25 Safeguarding Training Offer
We have started publishing dates for our 2024-25 safeguarding training. Including our new sessions: New to Role DSL training (for LGfL schools only), Failing to Care? The relationship between neglect & poverty and our webinar on Safeguarding Global Majority Children. Take a look at our course schedule and start booking your places now to avoid disappointment!
We are exploring the potential of offering LGfL schools FREE virtual Safer Recruitment training. Non-LGfL schools would be able to pay a small fee to attend.
Is this something you'd be interested in? Please click the button below to vote 'yes' for a LGfL Safer Recruitment course.
Web Filtering Alert - Adult Content on Popular Shopping Sites
We often remind schools that the internet will never be 100% safe as it is always changing and not made for children. That's just one reason you should regularly check your filtering settings (see safefiltering.lgfl.net for more).
Recently, several popular shopping sites have been flagged to us for containing items such as pornographic content printed on tea towels or graphic illustrations with sex toys.
You may wish to consider these risks and evaluate them for your setting - it MAY be advisable to block the 'sales' category for pupils if this is of concern, given they are unlikely to need to buy things while at school.
As ever, consider overblocking and risk assessing internet use. Get in touch if you would like to know more about the sites we are talking about.
1. Do you you filter per user? If you only see IP addresses on your filtering reports, you should speak to your IT technician about syncing your Windows AD / Google Directory. This will then identify each user within your reports. For more information see here.
2. Have you enabled HTTPS decryption? Decryption helps you to be more granular with your reporting and more targeted with your filtering of web pages. To find out more about decryption please look here, and to enable it, please ask your IT tech to look at the SchoolProtect User Guide.
We've been made aware of some incidents involving pupils using Scratch. Although you can turn off the comments function on individual projects, this is not automatic. Therefore we are aware of some pupils communicating with other members of the Scratch community putting them at risk of harm.
Here are a few reminders for when using Scratch:
Pupils can receive comments from anyone else using Scratch. Scratch states: "You can selectively turn off the ability for others to leave comments on their (pupils') profiles and each individual project, but there is not a site-wide feature to restrict commenting."
Teachers are encouraged to moderate comments, remove anything inappropriate and use the 'report' function.
Add the use of Scratch into your Acceptable Use Policy for pupils so it is clear about behaviour expectations.
If you/your pupils are using Scratch, talk explicitly to them and their parents about the importance of turning off the comments on projects before publishing.
Monitoring Update
As announced by our CEO, LGfL have completed a robust procurement process and are delighted to soon be offering schools a monitoring system powered by Senso. We will announce the details of this ASAP.
