Case Study:
Kingswood Secondary Academy

Kingswood Secondary Academy is committed to providing a broad and balanced education that enables students to achieve their potential.

Aware of the fast pace at which the online world expands and evolves, the academy wanted to empower themselves - and their community - with more comprehensive online safety knowledge.

Dan Scallan, Deputy Principal, explained how National Online Safety’s Certified School Membership has benefitted the whole school community and equipped staff to protect children online.

Online risks

With children spending more time at home and online throughout the pandemic, Kingswood Secondary Academy felt that a proactive approach was needed.

Dan explained: "When children are in school, we can monitor their behaviour online and manage that. When they are at home, we are not able to have that input."

"We've had to consider how we can teach children to keep themselves safe online," he added.

Dan continued: "They now have access to materials online which didn't exist when we were children. It's so challenging, and we have to be explicit in how we teach children positive behaviour online."

Choosing National Online Safety

When it came to choosing National Online Safety, Dan was impressed with the range of resources and training that was easily accessible on our award-winning platform.

He revealed: "We wanted accessibility for children, parents and carers. The materials needed to be relevant and interesting. Many resources are aimed at teachers, but we needed to reach our whole school community.

"National Online Safety was certainly the best programme we found," Dan nodded. "We'd used your #WakeUpWednesday guides in the past, and we wanted full access to the whole library of training."

Certified School Membership

Reflecting on the achievement of becoming a Certified School, Dan believes that the accreditation has provided a real validation for everyone’s collective efforts.

He confirmed: “Gaining the Certified School Accreditation was important to us and was a key factor that led to us joining National Online Safety. It shows that we take online safety seriously.

"Equally, being able to share resources with the whole school community was great," Dan elaborated. "The initial demonstration was really positive, particularly the CPD resources for our safeguarding team. It was exactly what we needed."

A wealth of benefits

Following the decision to join National Online Safety, Dan explained that classroom-based learning has been enhanced too: "Being able to show children short, engaging videos around online safety has been excellent.

“Our pastoral and safeguarding teams have found the training and resources extremely useful.” he went on. “For us, it’s been great to tap into your expert knowledge on online safety.”

Dan enthused: “The Certified School Accreditation is a nice thing to have. It demonstrates that we have put time and effort in to gain this award. It’s important that families see that we take online safety seriously; the plaque is displayed in reception and on our website, too.”