Ofsted describes e-safety as a school's ability to protect and educate pupils and staff in their use of technology, and to have mechanisms to intervene and support any incident, where appropriate.
Early Years, schools and college settings can find guidance and information below on statutory requirements and how they will be judged on meeting these by Ofsted.
The statutory guidance for schools and colleges on Keeping children safe in education notes that "as schools and colleges increasingly work online it is essential that children are safeguarded from potentially harmful and inappropriate online material. As such governing bodies and proprietors should ensure appropriate filters and appropriate monitoring systems are in place."
Annex C of the guidance is on online safety and covers three areas of risk:
Schools are able to use the free online safety self-review tool for schools provided by 360safe to aid in their review of online safety policies and practice.
The DfE have provided guidance for governors on the types of questions they should ask to help ensure their school leaders are keeping children safe online.
Online safety in schools and colleges: Questions from the Governing Board
Governors can use it to:
The document includes examples of good and outstanding practice, as well as identifying when governors should be concerned. This is non-statutory guidance and should be read alongside the DfE's Keeping children safe in Education statutory guidance.
Schools should expect there to be questions about the induction and training of staff with regard to safeguarding. There is likely to be interest from the inspectors as to whether there is evidence of a culture of vigilance and how the school evaluates the effectiveness of its safeguarding systems policies, such as those relating to child protection, online safety and safer recruitment.
As part of their Ofsted training around online safety there is an expectation that inspectors will talk to students about their online behaviour. They will also ask what messages they have been given in school and across the curriculum, about safe use of the internet and social media.
Schools should expect to be questioned about their promotion of British values and how extremism and radicalisation are challenged. If this is an issue within a school there are likely to be questions about how positive links to the local community are being made. It is likely that all schools will be questioned about the effectiveness of their online safety.
The guidance for Ofsted inspectors inspecting safeguarding in early years, education and skills settings under the common inspection framework includes the following points:
The UKCCIS Education Group has produced advice for schools and colleges on responding to incidents of 'sexting.' The advice aims to support them in tackling the range of issues which these incidents present, including, responding to disclosures, handling devices and imagery, risk assessing situations and involving other agencies.
The advice also contains information about preventative education, working with parents and reporting imagery to providers. This advice is non-statutory and should be read alongside the Department for Education's Keeping Children Safe in Education statutory guidance and non-statutory Searching, Screening and Confiscation advice for schools.
Below are some useful links to resources around sexting/youth produced imagery.
Below are some useful links for parents