ARBeech Grove Primary School in Somerset has just become the 500th school to be awarded the Online Safety Mark for outstanding online safety practice by leading not-for-profit charity SWGfL, a partner organisation for the UK Safer Internet Centre.
This award celebrates schools who are able to show exceptional standards relating to their online safety policy and practice within their communities. The Online Safety Mark is awarded when schools have reached the required benchmark levels within SWGfL’s own, free to use online safety self-review tool 360 Degree Safe (currently used by over 16,000 schools across the UK).
This is followed by a day of assessment where an accredited assessor will visit the school and meet with senior leaders, staff, children, parents/carers and Governors for interviews and internal reviews. This allows the Assessor to validate the school’s self-review, check that the online safety provision is robust and fully instilled within their communities and to celebrate the good practice.
Ron Richards Online Safety Mark Lead Assessor said:
‘’Awarding Beech Grove Primary School with the 500th Online Safety Mark award is a glorious and monumental occasion. In recent years, online safety has become a priority issue for all educational establishments and ensuring that schools are doing all that they can to protect young people online is an essential practice. We congratulate Beech Grove Primary School for their commitment and ongoing work in upholding exceptional online safety practice and for striving to keep their community safe online.’’
Claire Joyce, Headteacher at Beech Grove Primary said:
‘'The Beech Grove community is delighted to have been awarded the Online Safety Mark in recognition of the work we are doing in this important area. We are committed to ensuring that our pupils can enjoy all the benefits the online world can offer but in a way that is safe and responsible. We see online safety as an integral part of our safeguarding work so are pleased that our report highlights the strong culture we have created. I would like to thank the staff team for all their hard work in building this excellent practice and the Somerset eLIM EdTech team for supporting us on this journey. We are looking forward to continuing to build on these strengths to develop our practice even further.’’
360 Degree Safe Assessor Quote
“The school should be especially commended for their work building excellent relationships with children and parents, and how they have used these relationships creatively, to promote positive conversations around Online Safety. The school has worked extremely hard to establish a culture which encourages positive use of technology, as well as effectively addressing issues and risks and dealing with incidents swiftly in line with the school’s commitment to safeguarding.”
