Case Study:
Caldecote Community Primary School
Achieving their certified school status was a testament to Caldecote Community Primary School’s whole school approach to online safety.
The Leicester-based school were seeking a comprehensive package which would help keep their children safe online and looked no further than National Online Safety.
We spoke to Business Manager, Katy Barnes to find out more about how the school have implemented our resources – from lesson plans to our weekly #WakeUpWednesday guides.
Why did you choose National Online Safety?
The online safety platform which we had wasn’t really fit for purpose and, through our safeguarding measures, we’d seen some of the parent posters (#WakeUpWednesday guides) that had been produced on topics such as Snapchat and WhatsApp.
We thought they were really good, so we had a look and started to see what it was all about and liked what we saw.
How have you found the service from National Online Safety?
The team have always been very helpful whenever I’ve needed to get in touch.
What were the goals for using our resources?
We didn’t really have anything for the parents to use and obviously they can do their specific training now. We can send all of that stuff out to them and it’s in a parent-friendly format.
What we were doing before on online safety was out of date, whereas this is current – it’s what’s happening now.
For instance, we weren’t mentioning Snapchat or WhatsApp, but that’s what the kids are using out of school, so we needed to teach them about the dangers of that.
We’ve used figures from Children’s TV programmes in some of our lesson plans, how good has this been for the children in terms of providing a relatable source of content?
Everything has been fine and when the children start back properly, they’ll have their first online safety lesson.
It’s for all ages too, which is brilliant! It’s not very often that you can find stuff that’s actually appropriate for early years, but you’ve got that.
What is your feedback on our weekly #WakeUpWednesday guides? How would you say they’ve added to your e-safety approach?
They’re very user-friendly and don’t come with lots and lots of writing.
Some of our parents haven’t got the ICT skills which the children have got and don’t know what’s safe and what isn’t, so some of them have really appreciated us sending them out.
How much of a benefit has the ability to undertake courses and training on an online platform, in your own time been?
Some of staff haven’t got the greatest ICT skills but it’s all very self-explanatory and the platform for the admin is brilliant too.
I’m one of the admins so I go on there regularly and keep up to date with all of the webinars, so it’s really, really useful.
How have you found the use of our new Online Safety Hub? What differences have you noticed from the previous layout?
It’s just really easy to use, it’s not difficult at all!
You recently achieved your Certified School Status – how rewarding has it been to be awarded with this?
It’s been very rewarding!