Safety Guidelines
It is the duty of the school to ensure that every child in their care is safe, and the same principles should apply to the virtual presence of a school as would be applied to its physical buildings. Schools must ensure that no individual child can be identified or contacted either via, or as a result of a visitor using, the school website. There are several areas in particular where schools should exercise caution, and these are outlined below:
Images and examples of pupil work
Take care when using photographs of pupils on the school website. Consider using group photographs rather than photos of individual children, and never give children’s names alongside photographs. If showcasing examples of pupils work consider using only their first names, rather than their full names.
If showcasing digital video work, take care to ensure that pupils aren't refrred to by name on the video, and that pupils names aren't given in credits at the end of the film.
Parental permission should be obtained before publishing any photographs of pupils, or examples of their work, on the school website. Sample parent consent forms are available for using pupil images and digital video projects which can be copied and adapted by schools as required.
For further guidelines, see the document titled Using images and digital video on school websites.
Email addresses
Never publish personal email addresses of pupils or staff on the school website. Consider using anonymous or group email addresses, for example year4@schoolname.geographicallocation.sch.uk, which are appropriately filtered as part of the overall school email system. Further information on the issues surrounding using email in schools is available on this site.
Content and copyright
Text written by pupils should always be reviewed before publishing it on the school website. Make sure that the work doesn’t include the full name of the pupil, or reveal other personal information, such as membership of after school clubs or any other details that could potentially identify them. Although it may seem obvious, check that pupils work doesn’t contain any statements which could be deemed defamatory!
Ensure also that the school is not infringing copyright through any content published on the website. For further information see the document titled Intellectual property and copyright.
Linking to external websites
Links to any external websites should be thoroughly checked before inclusion on a school website to ensure that the content is appropriate both to the school and for the intended audience. Remember that the content of websites can change substantially, even in a short space of time. Check all links regularly, not only to ensure that they are still active, but that the content remains suitable too!
Website tools
Take care if you incorporate tools such as a search engine or web counter within your website. If using a ‘commercial’ search engine, check that you can configure it to search only the pages within your site to avoid the potential risk of inappropriate sites being displayed. Some search engines and counters may include links to advertising – consider whether these links are appropriate for your site, or whether alternatives are available.
Feedback facilities and data protection
Take care when using feedback facilities, such as guest books. Whilst these can be great fun, allowing visitors to leave a permanent record of their visit to your website, and providing the school with some useful feedback, think carefully about the level of detail you collect and reveal via your site. Many guest books will ask visitors to provide details of their name, email address, where they are visiting from and their comments – many young people will provide these details without caution, hence revealing a great amount of personal information about themselves and possibly providing a direct route for contact. If using such tools, ensure that stringent moderation is in place before any postings are published on your site to strip out any problematic information.
Think also about the data protection implications of collecting information via your school website – the document titled Data Protection Act and ICT use in schools provides further information on this issue.
The original content of this page is supplied by the DfES and can be found on their website.