Forensic Monitoring at OLOL

All devices at Our Lady of Lourdes are monitored using the  Securus Digital Monitoring Service. This is a forensic method of analysing what all pupils and staff are doing while connected to our school networks. The use of such software is to safeguard all users against online dangers such as extremism, drugs, radicalisation, inappropriate language, sexual content, grooming, cyber bullying, online chat rooms etc. The use of this software also helps to ensure the school are compliant with the latest statutory guidance issued by the government in Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSiE) and the Prevent Duty, both of which are reported upon during Ofsted inspections.

When pupils and staff work on devices anything they type, search for or see on their screen is evaluated and captured if it is a risk. These risks are graded as follows

• Grade 5 Potential Serious Safety threat: Urgent (High Risk) - child abuse; suicide indicator; extremism and radicalisation
• Grade 4 Potential Serious Safety threat: Non-urgent (High Risk) - racist and hate material; gambling; bullying; adult content
• Grade 3 Potentially Unsafe content or behaviour:  (Medium Risk) - social networks/chat rooms; giving personal contact information; extreme gaming Potentially inappropriate content or behaviour (Low Risk) - searches; video streaming; typed profanity; music and video download sites
• Grade 2 Potential Cyberslacking (Low Risk) - celebrity gossip; playing non-educational games; TV catch ups (Not doing the assigned learning in class)
• Grade 1 False Positive - No safety issue indicated

The captures are evaluated by the Securus Monitoring Team and then sent to school for review. It is important that parents know we monitor everything your child does online in school and that any capture of concern will be dealt with to safeguard the children and staff. 

Filtering at OLOL

It is a legal requirement to have effective monitoring in schools. Entrust (formerly Link2ICT) manage our filtering systems at OLOL. The aim of the filters is to block any content on our IT systems that could cause distraction to learning, that are low quality (such as fake news and misinformation) and most importantly to prevent any inappropriate content from reaching the children. Dangerous websites are blocked to keep children safe from illegal and inappropriate content which could be deemed to be obscene, violent, sexual, extremism linked, a risk to mental health and any site that lacks educational value or credibility. 

There are challenges to ensuring effective filtering but in general, there is a list of key words and images that are automatically filtered and should not be visible to pupils. This is not a fine science, if you search for Guy Fawkes to help with a history topic you may find it is filtered because there are links to conspiracy, explosives, treason, gruesome deaths of the people who tried to destroy Parliament… the system recognises these words as dangerous and likely extremism. We are a Catholic school so words like martyr cause concern, but many Saints were martyrs. As a school we have to use a common sense, safe approach to what children and staff have access to for the legitimate purposes of the school. 

All children and staff are required to sign an Acceptable User Agreement annually and There are consequences for deliberate attempts to access inappropriate materials on our network. 

Report Harmful Content (RHC) Button

The RHC button is an asset of SWGfL, a charity working internationally to ensure all benefit from technology, free from harm. The button has been developed to offer anyone living in the UK a simple and convenient mechanism for gaining access to reporting routes for commonly used social networking sites, gaming platforms, apps and streaming services alongside trusted online safety advice, help and support. It also provides access to an online mechanism for reporting online harm to the RHC service for those over the age of 13 where an initial report has been made to industry but no action has been taken. RHC will review content in line with a sites' community standards and act in a mediatory capacity where content goes against these.

Children under 13 years of age are encouraged to tell an adult that they trust about what has happened and to ask for their help in reporting this.

RHC also have advice and links to reporting routes for other online harms people may come across or face, such as impersonation, privacy violations and intimate image abuse. 

The RHC button provides a gateway to the RHC reporting pages, an area of the RHC website offering: 

• links to reporting routes on commonly used sites for 8 types of online harm

• help, advice and support on what to do if experiencing or witnessing harm online

• signposting to industry partners reporting forms and the ability to report legal but harmful content directly to RHC for further investigation

Reports can be made 24/7 through the online reporting forms and helpline practitioners will review and respond to reports  within 72 hours between 10am and 4pm Monday to Friday.

Reports can be made to RHC by anyone over the age of 13. SWGfL operates 3 helplines and to be sure you're getting the right support take a look at the Helpline flowchart below to find out who can best support you.

Cyber Resilience

OLOL has core membership of the Cyber Resilience Centre for the West Midlands (www.wmcrc.co.uk) as part of our continual drive to make the school cyber secure with attention paid to 5 key areas of our infrastructure:

• Firewalls and Internet Gateways
• Secure Configuration
• Access Control
• Malware Protection
• Patch Management

Our school will use the resources from the Cyber Resilience Centre (created by Police cyber experts) to continually increase safety and security online at OLOL.

Websites to help you with Online Safety

Online Safety and Security Links