ESafety

ICT in the 21^st Century is seen as an essential resource to support learning and teaching, as well as playing an important role in the every day lives of children, young people and adults. Consequently, schools need to build in the use of these technologies in order to arm our children with the skills to access life-long learning and employment.

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) covers a wide range of resources including; web-based and mobile learning. It is also important to recognise the constant and fast paced evolution of ICT within our society as a whole. Currently the internet technologies children and young people are using both inside and outside of the classroom include:

• Websites
• Learning Platforms and Virtual Learning Environments
• Email and Instant Messaging
• Chat Rooms and Social Networking
• Blogs and Wikis
• Podcasting
• Video Broadcasting
• Music Downloading
• Gaming
• Mobile/Smart phones with text, video and/or web functionality
• Other mobile devices with web functionality

Whilst exciting and beneficial both in and out of the context of education, much ICT, particularly web-based resources, are not consistently policed. All users need to be aware of the range of risks associated with the use of these Internet technologies.

At Tidcombe Primary School we understand the responsibility to educate our pupils in e-Safety issues; teaching them the appropriate behaviours and critical thinking to enable them to remain both safe and legal when using the internet and related technologies, in and beyond the context of the classroom.

Our E-Safety policy is inclusive of both fixed and mobile internet; technologies provided by the school; (such as PCs, laptops, webcams, whiteboards, digital video equipment, etc); and technologies owned by pupils and staff, but brought onto school premises (such as laptops, mobiles phones, camera phones and portable media players, etc).

Useful Website Addresses: