Online Safety

Teaching children about online safety (e-safety) is extremely important and is a large part of child protection and safeguarding, especially considering the technology that is available to our students both in school and outside of school.

Due to the needs of our pupils at Leigh Academy Milestone, each class personalises the way that online safety is taught to help develop their pupil’s understanding of the topic.

Click here to view the student online safety presentation

The school works in partnership with the Leigh Academies Trust to ensure that all staff participate in safeguarding training at the beginning of each academic year which includes e-safety. As a school, we also offer e-safety workshops twice a year where we invite parents into the school to talk about any difficulties they have at home around e-safety and we give any advice and support that we can offer.

Should you have any concerns regarding what your child is accessing online please do not hesitate to contact Janet Tidmas (DSL) and Sarah Goosani (Deputy DSL).

internet filtering & monitoring

Leigh Academy Milestone’s Internet Service Provider (ISP) blocks content related to child sexual abuse content, terrorism content, adult content, and offensive language. This has been tested via testfiltering.com, which you can also use to check the basic filtering from your own Internet Service Provider at home. 
 
In addition to filtering via our ISP, the Leigh Academies Trust has implemented additional Filtering and Monitoring, which meets the standards set by the Department for Education. This blocks access to harmful sites and content, and should not unreasonably impact on teaching and learning. We are aware that no filtering system is 100% effective, so all filtering is supplemented by high-quality teaching and learning around staying safe online. 
  • A Parents’ Guide to Technology: The UK Safer Internet Centre has created this guide to answer commonly asked questions and introduce some of the most popular devices used by children, highlighting the safety tools available and empowering parents with the knowledge they need to support their children to use these technologies safely and responsibly.
  • Internet Parental Controls: The four big internet providers – BT, Sky, Talk Talk and Virgin Media – provide their customers with free parental controls that can be activated at any time. Video tutorials on how to download and use these controls are available on the UK Safer Internet Centre website.

useful resources

Below are a series of documents and resources that you may find helpful when supporting your child with how to keep themselves and others safe online.

social media

Leigh Academy Milestone recommends that pupils avoid using all social networking sites and tools until they are of an appropriate age to do so.  
 
If parents/families allow the use of such sites then they are strongly advised to use nicknames and avatars when using social networking sites, blogs, Wikis, instant messengers etc. Avatars and nicknames help give pupil’s a ‘hidden’ identity on the internet rather than encouraging them to upload photographs of themselves.
  • SWGfL Social Media Checklists: Up to date and free to download guides on social media sites including TikTok and Roblox.
  • DoppelMe: Create a cool graphical likeness of yourself, your friends, family or any group of people for use as an avatar in forums, instant messenger, blogs and almost anywhere else on the web.
  • Facebook Family Safety Centre: Provides useful information and tips for parents and carers, teens and educators. These pages do not require a Facebook account in order to view them.
  • Google+ Safety Centre: Provides useful information and tips for parents and carers, teens and educators. These pages do not require a Google account in order to view them.
  • X (formerly Twitter) Help Centre – Tips for Parents: Provides useful information and tips for parents and carers. These pages do not require a Twitter account in order to view them.

If you have any questions about ICT & Online Safety please do not hesitate to contact our Digital Lead, Kyle Marsh (kyle.marsh@milestone.latrust.org.uk) directly.

Managing Digital Habits - WhatsApp

From time to time, we share information about specific apps or games, which we feel is relevant to our young people. Please take a look at this information sheet, produced by the National College, regarding WhatsApp. 

In particular, we would like to draw your attention to the “locked chats” and “secret codes” features, which allow any WhatsApp user to hide and lock specific conversations. These are hidden from view and users need to “swipe down” on the main app page to view locked chats. This makes some conversations easier to hide from parents/carers.

We strongly suggest checking your child’s phone regularly and ensuring that there is a culture of accountability, with clear consequences for poorly managing their digital habits. 

For more information, or for other app-related guides, see: https://nationalcollege.com/institutions/national-online-safety

Whatsapp National College Poster

online communication

Our Milestone@Wilmington students have been exploring online communication, what can happen and how it makes us feel if it is misused and how we can use it in a better way.  Students spent time reflecting upon online communication and creating word clouds, and then created a presentation and a film to express their thoughts and feelings. Please click on the links below to take a look.