Annual Certificate in Online Safety for Teaching Staff (2024-2025)

Safeguarding children online is everyone’s responsibility. All staff should receive appropriate safeguarding and child protection training, including online safety training, which is regularly updated and provides them with the relevant skills and knowledge to safeguard children effectively.
Developed by Lorna Ponambalum, independent safeguarding and inclusion consultant, our brand new online safety course for staff and practitioners covers the latest updates from ‘Keeping children safe in education 2024’ and has been designed to provide you with the expertise and capability to effectively carry out your role and keep children safe online. To make learning more exciting and enjoyable, we've recorded this course with celebrity presenter, social media influencer, and musician Myleene Klass.
Please note: This course provides AI-generated subtitles in multiple languages including English, Welsh, Arabic, German, Spanish, French, Polish, Ukrainian, Portuguese, Russian, Romanian and Chinese. To select a language, start the video and click the Closed Captioning (CC) button.
When planning and allocating your time, please consider that this training course consists of learning through video, task completion and further reading/research. To successfully understand and achieve the objectives of the course, learners are expected to engage in all aspects of the learning process and complete all relevant activities to ensure they can successfully apply the knowledge and skills they have gained in their own school or setting.
Designed in line with the following policies:

Introduction
Developed by Lorna Ponambalum, independent safeguarding and inclusion consultant, our brand new online safety course for staff covers the latest updates from ‘Keeping children safe in education 2023’ and has been designed to provide you with the expertise and capability to effectively carry out your role and keep children and young people safe online.

Module 1: Understanding the online safety landscape
This module explores the current online safety landscape including the background to online safety, key statistics reflecting online activities and online harms that children and young people may encounter, and what issues teachers, parents, and carers may face while keeping children safe online.

Module 2: Statutory guidance and legislation
This module considers the key policy documents that schools and staff need to be aware of in relation to their online safety responsibilities, and what staff should know in relation to Ofsted and how they view online safety in schools.

Module 3: Understanding online risks – unsafe communications
This module discusses the different types of online harms and risks associated with unsafe communications, including online relationships, fake profiles, online bullying, online grooming, child sexual exploitation (CSE), sexting, and live streaming.

Module 4: Risks of online information
This module covers the risks associated with online information and the practical steps you can take to support children around online reputation, age-inappropriate content, online fraud, financially motivated sexual extortion, fake news, targeted advertising, personal data, and the dark web.

Module 5: Children’s health, wellbeing, and lifestyle
This module provides insight on the risks to children’s health, wellbeing, and lifestyle including online and offline identities, social media and mental health, device addiction, online challenges, online gambling, radicalisation, and misogyny and the manosphere.

Module 6: Developing a culture of online safety
This module explores your role in developing a whole-school approach to online safety in schools, including a focus on reporting mechanisms, referrals, compliance promoting good practice, teaching online safety, and providing the necessary support to children and young people

Module 7: Safeguarding remote learners
This module outlines what your responsibilities are regarding safeguarding remote learners in line with DfE requirements, including key considerations when conducting remote learning, how technology is used in both the classroom and the home, and key guidance and legislation.

Module 8: Staff use of digital technologies
This module considers your role in ensuring effective staff use of digital technologies, particularly in supporting enhanced teaching and learning, complying with relevant safeguarding requirements, and how to address the ever-increasing rise of social media.
Outcome 1:
Understanding key safeguarding legislation and statutory guidance with respect to online safety and safeguarding children and young people online
Outcome 2:
Recognising how online safety should be implemented in schools and colleges and understanding, recognising and responding to a range of online risks
Outcome 3:
Appreciating how staff should be supporting pupils when they go online, spotting the danger signs and responding in a timely and effective manner
Outcome 4:
Realising how to implement a whole-school or college approach to safeguarding pupils online and developing a culture of online safety to help embed policies and best practice
Outcome 5:
Recognising staff responsibilities around safer use of technology, keeping up to date with online risks and knowing when to seek further advice and support

Lorna Ponambalum
Lorna Ponambalum is a strategic senior leadership education professional with over 23 years of teaching experience in inner London schools. She has served on the governing board and Senior Leadership Team (SLT) and is highly experienced as a Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL), leading her schools to outstanding inspections for safeguarding and being recognised herself as an outstanding teacher by Ofsted.
Lorna has worked as a Mental Health Lead and the Designated LAC (Looked After Children) Teacher. She has a wealth of strategic and operational knowledge in specialist areas. She has led on and is a champion for inclusion, safeguarding, anti-bullying, attendance, behaviour, and mental health as well as being a trained mental health first aider.
Lorna has been on the SLT of two recent Ofsted inspections where the schools have been judged as ‘good with outstanding features’. She has managed large local authority (LA) safeguarding initiatives, represented on working groups, worked on self-evaluation forms (SEF) and school improvement plans (SIP) and is familiar with single central registers (SCR).
She has developed and delivered INSET and continuous professional development (CPD) training to multi-agency education professionals including teachers, pastoral and therapeutic staff as well as senior leaders. She has also managed teams and supported staff to develop and implement policy and safeguarding systems to meet quality assurance compliance cycles and standards to ensure children and young people are kept safe.