Case Study:
The British School of Paris

Aware of the ever-changing digital world and the online risks for their students, The British School of Paris wanted to further develop their culture of safeguarding through National Online Safety.

Since gaining Certified School status, the international school has been delighted with the safeguarding training and resources that National Online Safety’s programme has provided for the whole school community.

Emma Carralón, Head of E-Learning joined us to discuss the benefits she has witnessed so far.

The British School of Paris

Emma began: "The British School of Paris is an international school, and we teach the British curriculum."

Educating children in using technology safely is of the utmost importance to The British School of Paris.

"The internet is one of the best inventions, and we can't live without it - it's brilliant," Emma reasoned. "However, I think we've learned that it must be used wisely."

"For us, as educators, it's so important to ensure that we are teaching students how to use the internet safely." she nodded. "It's a great resource but there is another side of it. If we aren't teaching students to evaluate what they're seeing and how to use it safely, it becomes a problem."

"All of the children have access to iPads, and they will have those throughout their time at the school." Emma revealed. "That's why for our school, it's so important that we have a very strong focus on internet safety."

Joining National Online Safety

It can be challenging to stay up to date with the latest changes in a continually evolving digital world. The British School of Paris appreciates the importance of a strong online safety education for their students.

"I'd completed an audit on our internet safety at the school and was looking at what could be improved or done better," Emma recalled. "It had been agreed that I could do a whole school INSET day too … I was looking for something to help me with that."

She elaborated: "It needed to be something simple, that didn't take hours of admin for me to set up. It needed to be quick and easy to use, and accessible for everyone."

A wealth of online safety training and resources

When choosing a digital safeguarding partner, Emma was impressed with the breadth of resources and training accessible on National Online Safety’s platform.

She nodded: "There’s such a range of courses and webinars, it's fantastic. It isn't just internet safety, there are lots of additional resources. The courses are specific for different roles within the school, too."

Emma continued: “We needed to develop our links with the whole school community, so the courses for governors, parents and admin staff have been excellent."

"We're very lucky as we haven't had any major online safety incidents," she confirmed. "With the older students, there are different things to be worried about.

"Our major concern as teachers is what the students are doing at home - everything at school is controlled,” Emma explained. "We spend a lot of time in the senior school looking at online relationships and respect."

"One of your resources on digital resilience really helped me plan my INSET day and work with my digital leaders," she divulged. "We did a big feedback session on our INSET day and staff were very complimentary of the courses that they did.

"Staff members shared what they’d learned throughout the day, which was great. Parents have given really good feedback on the courses too."

Achieving the Certified School Accreditation

On achieving Certified School status, Emma felt that collective commitment had paid off following a real team effort from the school’s community.

She smiled: "I'm very proud of everyone for achieving the Certified School Accreditation. I'm grateful for the time that the governors and parents put aside for this training too.

"We had nearly everyone in the school trained in online safety, which was a huge success for us," Emma commented. "We're very proud to have achieved it!"

"As the online safety lead, it's been an outstanding tool for me to use,” Emma summarised. "It helped me to deliver online safety training for the whole school community and staff received their certificates for that too. We also share the #WakeUpWednesday guides through our newsletter with parents."