E-safety in Kent

There are lots of ways to protect children online. An e-Safety Officer is working with Kent schools, helping children and teachers understand online dangers and how to combat them.

Kent is using the nationally acclaimed 'ThinkUKnow' Internet safety scheme. Designed initially for secondary schools, a primary school version will be out shortly. Kent is also developing its own training programme for those involved with education and working with young people. Helpful links to some of other information can be found at :

• Internet Watch Foundation
• Virtual Global Taskforce
• Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre

(all links open in a new window)

Technology can be very good for children and their education but some important risks need wider awareness amongst parents:

• Copying too much information from the Internet or buying work from other people to use as their own
• Spending too much time online with an affect on schoolwork, sleep or family time
• Viewing pages which may contain unsuitable content
• Giving out too much personal information e.g. name, school, phone number, email address.
• Becoming involved in or the victim of bullying, identity theft, or making and sending indecent images whilst online
• Arranging to meet an online 'friend' without thinking about consequences and dangers

E-safety in the home

Children also spend lots of time using the Internet at home. They might visit social networking sites like Bebo, Myspace, Facebook and Piczo, or use instant messaging or online gaming sites. These are often blocked on school computers but are very popular with children.

You can buy special filtering and blocking software to protect your children, although most Internet browser software has some filters and security in place. Filtering software lets parents choose what is suitable for their children to look at.

If you keep your PC 'anti-virus' security up to date you should not have problems with most threats from the Internet or from downloaded email attachments. The popular browsers such as Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox also let you control or block things such as unwanted pop-up advertisements and " cookies" e.g. when a website downloads a small file to your PC to remember your name / login.

Always take care to protect your home computer and members of the family who use it.

• Filter unsuitable sites so that they cannot be seen or used by your children. This doesn't have to cost a lot. Many Internet Service Providers (like AOL or BT) will include filtering and some level of internet security free. You might want to check with them what is already available before buying extra security software. Most specialist PC stores can advise you.
• Talk to your children about how they use the internet and tell them about the risks of downloading files from unknown sources, copying information from sites or putting personal information on the Internet. Their school may well have done this but you can help by repeating the message at home. Talk to your child about how they use the internet and learn from them.
• To make sure your children are using the Internet safely, keep your computer in a room also used by other members of the family if you can
• Be aware that some devices, such as Mobile Phones, Games Consoles etc are also able to access the internet and bypass filtering. Consider putting parental controls in place (either by contacting your mobile phone provider or from the console/device's settings directly) to restrict internet access.

For more information and guidance:

• Kent Police Website
• Kent National Grid for Learning
• Kent Trust Web e-Safety Page

(all the above links open in new windows)

Download our Information for Parents leaflets

• Primary school age children
• Secondary school age children and young people