Are you protecting your children fully from the dangers that ICT can bring? The
usual answer to this question is "Yes, we have an Internet blocking system".
The Royal Alexandra and Albert School is a leading State School, taking Boarders and Day boys and girls from the age of seven to eighteen years of age, with total pupil numbers of 570. The School is situated in a rural location of some 260 acres just outside Reigate in Surrey. The School introduced networked PC’s into the school in 1998, and pupils have supervised access to Web sites, E-mail, File-Transfer capability, Word Processing and other PC Applications and Learning Packages.
The number of PC’s installed in the school is growing year on year. Classroom, Library, and Administration access to the Internet, E-mail and Classroom Learning Systems is provided via 112, mainly Research Machine PC's and classroom systems with 52 Admin PC’s operating on a single computer network.
At an early stage the School recognised the potential dangers inherent in providing such access. In line with other schools it utilised one of the ‘Industry Standard approved’ traditional blocking methods, using Internet filtering software as a means of attempting to deny pupils and staff access to undesirable Web sites, in combination with trying to supervise the in–class use of PC’s.
“At the time, we had one of the best Internet Protection Systems available,” said Headmaster Paul Spencer Ellis, “but even with this system in place, there was no off-line or Email protection, and misuse of the School’s Networks and PC’s was difficult to monitor and control. Due to these limitations I was concerned that the pupils were not adequately protected or prevented from misusing the network.”
“Teaching and ICT staff spent considerable time and energy in attempting to monitor and control activities in the classrooms and Library. Even then, there was still no guarantee that PC and Internet misuse was not taking place, and I was not convinced that the security measures were providing sufficient protection for the children in our care. He added, ‘We were committed to meeting our pupil care responsibilities to the greatest extent possible, and therefore set out to investigate whether any solutions existed that could overcome the inherent weaknesses and deficiencies of the Internet Blocking approach. We were therefore very receptive to working with Securus Software Limited when they introduced SECURUS Software to the School.”
“By installing SECURUS we have been able to implement a fast, simple and cost effective approach to ensuring acceptable use of Internet and Email. I am now happy that we are providing pupils with access to a network with unlimited Internet access that is nevertheless safe. We are now planning to install networked PC’s in our eleven boarding houses where computer use will not be supervised, and where the software will be vital in controlling use of the workstations.”
The benefits that we have identified from utilising SECURUS are:
- Reduced parental concern with regard to use of ICT within the School
- Substantial improvements in the behaviour of pupils using ICT
- Dramatic reduction in teachers’ wasted time
- Pupils using ICT more productively for lessons and homework
- Improved ability to monitor harassment, bullying and racial taunting
- Substantial time savings for teaching staff and ICT coordinators
- Drastically reduced undesirable activities both in and out of class
- Enables the updating of URL blocking lists to be more effective
- The confidence to allow email and Internet access in the Boarding Houses
- The ability to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of our RM SafetyNet Plus Internet filtering service.
We asked how SECURUS could bring about so many benefits, Mel Court, the School’s Network manager went on to explain, “Even though we already had Internet Site filtering in place, the pupils were able to circumvent this in a variety of different ways that ‘Industry Standard’ Internet filtering was unable to control or prevent.”
Prior to SECURUS being installed, these circumventions covered activities such as:
- Searching, viewing, downloading or transmitting Pornography via Search Engines, Diskettes, CD's, Emails, and File transfers
- The creation and transmission of emails or word files containing blasphemous, foul, lewd, offensive, obscene and abusive writings from within or outside of the School
- The receipt of abusive, sexually explicit or offensive e-mails or word files from within or outside of the School
- The transmission of bullying, threatening, taunting or undermining material to pupils via email or word files from within or outside of the School
- The transmission and receipt of emails inciting racial or religious unrest
He added ‘However, SECURUS works right across the board, and pupils are now unable to get away with such activities undetected’.