No more regulation for web filtering & e-safety

[tom_newton]

Read Simon's blog post here, and sign the petition:

Smoothwall Blogspace: DfE Passes Buck on e-Safety

[pete]

Erm, bit of context for those of us who missed the announcement? Or is it just the general abandonment post-Becta?

 

Frankly, relying on DoE for useful, well thought out and sane rules regarding eSafety & IT was at best wishful thinking.

[Dos_Box]

A link to the DfE annoucement/relevant page could be handy for members please Tom.

[localzuk]

From a comment that Smoothwall have posted on Twitter, it seems that it was from an email from the DfE to Smoothwall, not a general announcement.

[IrritableTech]

I've been told that smoothwall got an email from the DfE and will not post it publicly.

 

https://twitter.com/#!/Smoothwall/status/180214849433903105

 

I'm in two minds about this. Firstly schools may need to deal with the issue of filtering individually, but unfortunately some schools don't have the local knowledge required.

 

[edit] beaten to it again!

[Dos_Box]

I've just been having a look on the DfE site and can't find anything, but TBH, it is next to useless as an information portal

[IrritableTech]

I did the same last night @Dos_Box, searched high and low, which is why I tweeted smoothwall. I find it slightly odd to create the blog when nobody else can see the original information it is supposedly based on.

[AngryTechnician]

If the DfE don't want to be open about what is quite a significant dismissal of their responsibilities, I'm more than happy for Smoothwall to tell us what's going on. I think it's worth mentioning that Simon from Smoothwall has started an e-petition to call for this to be reversed, and I for one fully support it:

 

Delivering Safe On-line Environments in Schools - e-petitions

[GrumbleDook]

To say that this is felt by many as a bad move is putting it politely. I can understand that they want to put the onus on schools to taken responsibility but to completely remove with extra support or advice is very dangerous.

 

There have been a few people prodding around on this already and on Friday (at the NAACE Conference) I publicly asked David Brown (OFSTED, National Advisor on ICT) about the legislative guidance for schools around eSafety (in reference to his comments about eSafety in subject in sections, the OFSTED report showing that managing eSafety works better than whitelist/blacklist, etc) and the paraphrased answer was that OFSTEd do not legislate but there are plenty out people out there who give advice and guidance. I take this as reference to UKCCIS, CEOP, Childnet, The UK Safe Internet Centre, etc.

 

I then asked the same question of Stephen Carrick-Davies in particular in reference to the Munch, Poke, Ping report around young people and conflict experience by vulnerable children (with the example of how many know of the role of eSafety in the Safeguarding Vulnerable Children Act 2006) ... and he pointed out the clear, plain explanation of legislation is needed by schools and education settings and this had been highlighted in the report ... but that there was nothing out there yet. So research says advice and guidance is needed and what is there needs more work.

 

So why remove something that supports and builds that? Because some schools try to use it to totally devolve their responsibility? Removing the accreditation will not solve that, merely allow more schools to fall through the gaps ... does this allow schools to fail or is that being cynical.

 

I know some folk have seen the RBC role in the accreditation as allowing them to be dictatorial, but the accreditation has nothing to do with that and I have posted enough times about how most RBCs / LAs give you the flexibility to do what you need / want ... it is not about power / control ... it is, first and foremost, about protecting children!

 

I'm off to chat with our LSCB shortly and will raise it there too.

 

Well done to Simon for raising the ePetition. Having just had a rant about this on the DfE Safetynet mailing list there have already been some firms and other subscribers who have contacted me to see if there is anything else going on to express concern so I will raise the ePetition later on the list too.

 

It is going to make the eSafety Live conference and interesting place for discussions.