How students and parents can use an online reporting facility to access help and support from school.

New technology brings both new opportunities and new threats.  Mobile phones, messaging services, email and social networking sites all have their ups and downs when it comes to young people’s communication with one another and the wider community.  At their best these technologies allow youngsters to connect with the world; but when things go wrong and the cyber-bullies and abusers take over, they can make the world a very lonely place indeed for vulnerable students.   Becoming ever more aware of the potential pitfalls, we set up an E-Safety Committee in school to formulate our thinking and to steer our response to new technology.  The committee included members of the Senior Leadership Team, the E-Learning Manager, the Network Manager, Head of ICT, two Pastoral Leaders, the Designated Senior Person (for child protection) and a Parent Governor.  This committee reviewed our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) and linked it explicitly to our Positive Behaviour Policy.  Four members of the committee attended CEOPS training (Child Exploitation and Online Protection Service), significantly expanding our awareness of the technologies and services that students might be using and the risks they could be exposed to as a result.  We embraced the CEOPS philosophy that banning new technologies is counter-productive (and probably impossible!) and that a better response is to pro-actively teach responsible and safe usage.   ICT schemes of work were adapted, assemblies were held, staff awareness was raised and E-Safety posters were put up all around school.  So far so good - when it came to dealing with the threats that is – but what use had we made of the opportunities?   One of the main issues with young people’s use of electronic communication is the extent to which they become dis-inhibited.  This is normally perceived as a problem – it can lead to atrocious language and some very unwise expression of opinion online which would not usually occur in face-to-face situations.  But might it not also allow some students to alert school to issues which they are too embarrassed to talk to an adult about in person?  And what if they don’t know who to approach anyway?  These questions occurred at the same time as we were discussing putting the CEOPS link button on our website and Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).  It would allow any student who felt themselves to be in imminent danger of abuse to contact the police at any time of the day or night.   Could we not do something similar – but for less immediately threatening situations – for our students?  Could we offer them the facility to report their  concerns and issues from the security and comfort of their own homes or anywhere else they could get online?  As we talked the idea through, our own Report-IT button was conceived.   In its final form, the button appears on our website and VLE in a prominent position.  When anyone clicks on it they are taken to a welcome page which explains and reassures.  Visitors to the page are encouraged to identify themselves and then use a secure online form to say whatever they want to.  They then click to submit it.  The report they create is recorded directly into a database which then emails an alert, containing the text of the report, to members of the E-Safety Committee.  The first person to pick up the report then decides who is best placed to deal with the issue raised and forwards the email as appropriate.  The report is then followed up as any other report made in a more traditional way would be.  The E-Safety Committee also operates a rota to check the database itself just in case the automatic email function fails.   Report-IT does not replace any other system, it simply gives pupils, parents, staff – any member of our learning community – another route to access the help they/their friends/their children might need.  The form is flexible enough to allow students to cut and paste web addresses into it, for example, so staff can access offensive online content directly.   So does it work?  Well, we certainly believe so.  We have never been inundated with reports, but we have received reports of some issues that might have taken a lot longer to come to light without this online facility.  As we originally hypothesised, dis-inhibition does have an upside and a number of students are happier and experiencing greater well being as a result.  It doesn’t solve all ills but it is one more useful tool in our box.   We hope this short summary of Report It is useful but if you would like more information, contact us on mail@nhgs.co.uk.   We also held an E-Safety Poster Competition for Year 7 after they had CEOP Training.

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