DfE Filtering and Monitoring Standards for Schools
Online safety remains a constant safeguarding priority for schools and colleges in today’s ever-evolving digital world. Here Martin Cain provides a useful summary of how to use these standards and implement good safeguarding practices alongside them.
Context
The DfE has recently introduced new filtering and monitoring standards for schools and colleges and wishes to encourage schools and colleges to use them to review their filtering and monitoring strategies, to help protect children and young people online.
The UK Safer Internet Centre has been publishing self-certified responses from leading providers since 2016 to help schools and colleges carry out their filtering and monitoring responsibilities. These new DfE standards reinforce the existing aspects of both filtering and monitoring systems whilst elaborating on new ones such as responsibility within educational settings and continued review processes.
Safeguarding responsibilities
Under these new standards it is clear that safeguarding teams hold more responsibility for filtering and monitoring obligations. Schools and colleges should clearly identify and assign roles and responsibilities to manage their filtering and monitoring systems. All too often it is sometimes found that technical staff assume this responsibility, but while their expert support is of course necessary, an effective strategy for online safety and safeguarding should be led by designated safeguarding leads.
It is vitally important that the right people are working together and using their professional expertise to make informed decisions. Training should be provided to make sure their knowledge is current. Schools and colleges may need to ask their monitoring system provider for system specific training and support.
Developing effective monitoring strategies
Monitoring user activity on school and college devices is an important part of providing a safe environment for children and staff. Unlike filtering, it does not stop users from accessing material through internet searches or software.
Monitoring allows schools and colleges to review user activity on devices they provide. For monitoring to be effective it must pick up incidents urgently, usually through alerts or observations, allowing for prompt action and record the outcome.
A variety of monitoring strategies may be required to minimise safeguarding risks on internet-connected devices and may include:
· physically monitoring by staff watching screens of users
· live supervision by staff on a console with device management software
· network monitoring using log files of internet traffic and web access
· individual device monitoring through software or third-party services
Testing efficiency across devices
Schools and colleges should be regularly checking and documenting that their filtering and monitoring systems work across all devices, but at least annually. Professionals need to be aware that filtering and monitoring often work differently across mobile devices and as such, regular testing (at least once a year) is essential. These processes should be clearly scheduled in the annual review process and programme of work for technical teams, but also reported back to designated safeguarding leads, recorded accordingly and also minuted at the relevant governors’ committee as part of the process through which they receive regular safeguarding updates.
Any additional checks to filtering and monitoring need to be informed by the review process so that governing bodies and proprietors have the assurance that systems are working effectively and meeting safeguarding obligations.
Assessment and consideration
No filtering system can be 100% effective. Schools and colleges need to understand the coverage of their filtering system including any limitations it has, and mitigate accordingly to minimise harm and meet the statutory requirements in Keeping children safe in education (KCSIE) and the Prevent duty. They should also make sure that their filtering provider is:
· A member of Internet Watch Foundation (IWF)
· Signed up to Counter-Terrorism Internet Referral Unit list (CTIRU)
· Blocking access to illegal content including child sexual abuse material (CSAM)
Schools and colleges should also consider whether their current filtering and monitoring solutions are actually appropriate for their communities. Filtering and monitoring systems need to be chosen based on their specific relevance to the school or college, as opposed to their cost. For example, schools and colleges should know the risk profile of their pupils, including, for example, their age range and those with special educational needs and disability (SEND) and English as an additional language (EAL). These considerations can only be fully informed if they are underpinned by the carrying out of sufficiently robust risk assessments designed to serve as online safety review tools.
Documenting robustness
Schools and colleges must also document the robustness of their systems to ensure that harmful online content is effectively being filtered out. Logging this information is an essential part of filtering and monitoring strategies. If additional support is required with testing, schools and colleges can do this for free by using testfiltering.com. which specialises in helping them to ensure their systems block child abuse and terrorist content.
Further support
360Safe research carried out by South West Grid for Learning tells us that filtering and monitoring practices in schools and colleges have improved over the past 12 years, but that it is also essential to maintain these standards. The UK Safer Internet Centre provides more information on filtering and monitoring, along with self-certified responses from leading providers. There are templates and advice in the reviewing online safety section of Keeping children safe in education. Schools and colleges should also check that they meet the DfE standards for Cyber security.