Safeguarding / Online safety

Internet and application metering

In line with numerous pieces of official guidance (Prevent Duty, KCSiE, ISTE, CIPA, State laws), schools must have appropriate levels of internet metering in place.

With NetSupport DNA, you can set lists of approved and restricted URLs (including filtering lists such as the Counter-Terrorism Internet Referral Unit) and/or apply sub-URLs centrally to manage access to sites or applications that are regarded as inappropriate/approved by the school. This is a great starting point for online safety.

In addition to restricting websites and applications by their specific name, you can block or restrict apps and games by their window’s title, helping to add a broader layer of security while keeping students on task. For example, you can block an application with the word ‘multi-player’ in the title during school hours but allow it for after-school clubs, if appropriate.

Although it would be easy to restrict everything that could be seen as a risk, in reality, that’s impractical and would impact learning. That’s where the Internet Metering feature in NetSupport DNA comes in. This provides you with a detailed summary of all internet activity on each device by a student – including start and finish times for each URL visited and the active time spent on a page. You can review the results by device or user.

Age-appropriate internet control: To help schools implement a flexible internet access policy that meets the need of particular departments or year groups, NetSupport DNA enables you to create Profiles. This means that groups of devices or students/staff (i.e. year group or department level) can each have their own specific component settings. So, for example, you can apply multiple approved or restricted website lists to specific year groups or implement age-appropriate monitoring and restrictions (i.e. Year/Grade 10/11 pupils can access Facebook as part of their studies).

Contextual intelligence-based Risk Index

In any online safety situation, your platform needs to go beyond simply highlighting worrying words or phrases and expand on the context in which these terms are being used (i.e. whether they are accidental, academic or indicative of risk).

NetSupport DNA’s contextual intelligence-based Risk Index automatically flags high-risk events and vulnerable students, based on sophisticated contextual AI risk analysis. It assesses the context and history of a student’s activities – from the devices used, time of day and websites visited (including previous alerts they may have triggered) – and, from this information, creates a numerical risk index.

A high risk index number could result if a student has repeatedly researched an online safety topic (e.g. suicide) out of hours, in an unmonitored setting such as the library. A lower index rating could result from a student searching a lower risk keyword in a local application during class hours for curriculum topics.

The risk index number is included when reviewing a triggered event, so you can quickly see whether urgent intervention is needed – and, if so, you can do so with the correct professional response.

All the monitoring and assessment of these alerts is done locally by each school (no third-party services are required) and so your data is fully secure.

Keeping track of events

All new triggers are highlighted as such, and when you are reviewing them, you can mark them as ‘in progress’ or ‘complete’. Each status has a different colour code and you can filter the main view to only show certain statuses (i.e. new triggers only). This is extremely useful to help you to keep track of which ones need reviewing or to let supporting staff know where to pick up if you are on holiday.

You can print, save, email or take a screengrab of the results to forward to a colleague to follow up on. By selecting History, it will show which safeguarding/online safety console staff have viewed the event.

Re-assigning concerns: You may sometimes need to re-assign concerns to another person, for example, if you are on leave. In this case, the concern you were dealing with can be re-directed to another staff member, with both of you being automatically notified of the change via email.

Teacher ‘Add a concern’: In situations where a teacher is verbally told of a student’s concern, they can log it via the ‘Add concern’ button on the safeguarding navigation tab. The school DSL/counselor can also use this to method to quickly transfer and record any paper-based concerns into NetSupport DNA.

Teachers can select which member of staff they would like to report the student’s concern to, enabling that person to track the concern, re-assign it and record any follow-up actions directly from within NetSupport DNA.

Not only does this help to stop any incidents recorded onto pieces of paper from going missing, but it helps prevent the concern from being forgotten about or not being reported or recorded correctly.

Proactive tools for students

Report a concern: Ensuring students can report a concern they might have is key to an effective safeguarding/online safety policy. NetSupport DNA includes a way for students to report their concerns in confidence to a trusted member of staff via the ‘Report a concern’ option.

The school can define as many staff as they wish on the system – and even select which teachers are available for students to report concerns to via Profiles. This is especially useful for schools in multi-academy trusts or districts, who can simply select the relevant profile displaying the safeguarding contacts for their own school.

Students can share their problem from any NetSupport DNA-enabled device by sending a message, screenshots or documents to their chosen staff member. The member of staff is instantly alerted when a concern is raised and they can then track it and record any follow-up actions directly from within NetSupport DNA.

Authorised staff at the school can be assigned rights to view all concerns raised and they will be alerted if any concern is not actioned within a pre-defined time. The key to this feature is to offer simplicity and ease of access for students, with the flexibility and safeguards to ensure it is effective.

Online self-service resources: Students can access online support resources – covering topics such as FGM, drug addiction, grooming and bullying – all from the NetSupport DNA online safety icon on their PC. Staff can also manage the pre-populated list and add any additional ones they feel are appropriate.

Acceptable Use Policies

NetSupport DNA also reminds students of the role they play in their own online safety by asking them to agree to the school’s Acceptable Use Policy before going online.

Acceptable Use Policies (AUPs) form an integral part of ensuring students and staff are aware of any safeguarding policies in place and agree to the terms before using school resources. Multiple policies are supported and schools can also use the ‘Health and Social Distancing’ policy template to support a safe learning environment with any new safety information across the school.