E-Safety

Childnet has been working with BT, Sky, Talk Talk and Virgin Media, to produce short video clips outlining where you can find the free parental controls, what they do and how you set them up.

The Nominet Trust funded project looks specifically at how vulnerable, excluded young people are using social media and how those working with them in Pupil Referral Units can best support them.  This latest chapter includes two films;  one from students (a fun stop-motion animation) and a longer reflective piece in which both students and staff from the Bridge Academy discuss underage use of adult games and how teachers respond to the issues which many of these games can bring up.  

 As  changes in the law to mean that anyone who sells a designated 12+ title to younger children will face fines of up to £5,000 and a jail sentence  it is important that  advice is integrated into E-safety programmes.

 Stephen Carrick-Davies has  also written about his hope that  school can begin to better support both students and parents about how violent video games may influence children. 

Read more about the project  and see the videos here    

Insafe writes

“As the school holidays loom large, a recent significant independent review looking at the commercialisation and sexualisation pressures on children to grow up too quickly concludes, amongst many recommendations, that industry should ensure that parents make an ‘active choice’ when it comes to parental controls or filtering options.”

For more see here

YHGFL have annouced their findings about a change to Google Images here

However reservations have been raised about suitability of Bing Safesearch, which is one of the alternatives that is suggested.

If you have a large number of computers you may outgrow the technical controls recommened for home and small office use here

There are a number of commercial products that would help you manage your ICT systems from an e-safety point of view if you also have the staff to operate them effectively. These include (without any particular recommendation)

Securus                                      BehaviourWatch               Forensic Software 

 e-safe education                    Netsweeper                        Cybersentinel

SmoothWall                              Netintelligence

When implementing a filtering solution, keep in mind a preference for managing access to content rather than blocking where content is not inappropriate for the age. See

Ofsted report on effectiveness of filtering

There are three main content rating schemes that help you decide if content is appropriate for children; the US ESRB scheme and the EU PEGI scheme .

ESRB  and PEGI

You can also look up the details of any rating  for games and videos sold in the UK on the BBFC website for parents and children can also learn a lot from the related childrens site :

Parents BBFC   and   Childrens BBFC

If you would like advice on controling use on mobile phones and game consoles see here or on PCs see here

OfCom have produced two leaflets aimed at parents about how to restrict content and services available and where to go for help. You can find them at

OfCom console leaflet                                                                         OfCom mobile leaflet

Note: some of the links on the back pages need updating. Our best guesses at what was intended if they have changed is:

Wii           DS            PS (use menu top right)           Xbox

The PEGI Good Gaming Guide also has a summary for parents  

For advice on controling use of PCs see here