Online Safety

At The Swan we recognise the importance of our students being equipped to participate safely in the digital sphere. Across their time at our school, students will learn about the responsible use of technology in a number of ways including:

• Personal Development Curriculum: A key strand of our personal development focuses on supporting our young people to understand key risks associated with technology. 

• Computing Curriculum: Our Computing curriculum includes a focus on digital literacy and AI literacy - with reference to topics including personal data, email etiquette, and screen-time. 

• Whole School Activities: We regularly reference the importance of digital safety within our whole school assemblies, topics for conversations at family dining, and within Thought for the Weeks activities in tutor time. We celebrate Safer Internet Day annually.

We have a strict filtering and monitoring system in place ensuring that any use of school-provided digital devices is done safely. 

Smart Phones:

We support the Smartphone Free Childhood campaign - recognising the negative impact that early access to Smartphones and Social Media have on young people. As a school we ensure that our students do not require a smartphone in order to be successful. We do this through:

• Not utilising smartphones within any aspect of the school curriculum.

• Ensuring that there is a mixture of online and offline homework, and providing a homework club to support completion of any online homework. 

We believe that access to a smartphone during the school day is a distraction to our students, and also can constitute a safeguarding risk. For this reason any smartphone seen or heard during the school day is confiscated. The same extends to smart watches, cameras, and other internet enabled devices. This applies from the threshold into the building in the morning, through to the side-gate at the end of the day. 

Parental Guidance:

Our recommendation is that students should not have access to a smart phone, or social media accounts, until they are 16.

In addition, we recommend the following resources to help with learning more about different applications, and configuring parental controls. 

• Parental Control Guides from Internet Matters - Here you can find guidance on how to configure parental controls with most major broadband providers and apps. These controls may include age restrictions, screen time limits, and filtering of inappropriate videos.

• NSPCC Guides - The NSPCC have a number of very useful guides focused on what some of the key apps/tools used by young people are, explaining some of the key online harms, and approaches to starting conversations surrounding online safety.

• CEOP Advice Articles - CEOP also has created a number of topic based articles which you may find useful on topics including digital footprints, online grooming, and the dark web.

Reporting Concerns:

If you have a concern that you would like to raise with the school (for example cyberbullying or inappropriate use of social media) this can be done through contacting your child's Head of Year.  

The Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Command, a branch of the police, can also be contacted if you have concerns surrounding sexual abuse or online grooming. 

If you would like to ask questions surrounding e-safety more generally, please email our digital lead graham.mogridge@theswanschool.org.uk.