Welsh Government - Recommended web filtering standards for schools in Wales

[Gonk]

Morning all,

 

This arrived on my desk last Friday.

 

I'd thought that I'd share it as some of the recommendations are quite amusing!

 

Enjoy

 

Ross

Recommended web filtering standards for schools - Foreword amends (E) 18 06 15 final inc cover.pdf

[bossman]

haha!

 

Especially the software download, basically everything which can be downloaded should be allowed, where do these guys come from with their "Bluesky" thinking which in reality gives everyone else a headache!!!

 

It would be like going into a gun shop and allowing teenagers to purchase weapons without the need for a permit or license!

 

Absolute garbage!!

 

Yes we want to maintain free thinking but to allow access to social networking to try and teach students and staff appropriate use, most of them have accounts on social networking sites and know fully how to use them and also how to abuse them, imagine the cyber bullying that would happen in school, no work would ever get done in class as most of the students and also most of the staff would spend their time on anyone of a number of social media sites.

 

As for all the rest its totally unbelievable that they want to ban advertising yet allow social media haha! most social media contains advertising!!

 

Could rant on but hey ho!

[localzuk]

It all seems to be based upon the views of one celebrity psychologist Tanya Bryon.

 

It seems to ignore the issues with ensuring children are on task, for example. It also seems to ignore the issues with things like copyright infringement or network security (and the requirements to protect data).

[mikeprice]

It seems to say any site which advertises things should be blocked as well as any site that gives instruction of doing anything illegal.

As many sites have advertys then they should be blocked

YouTube etc all have instruction on how to rip dvds etc etc - so that should be blocked

 

seems daft

[X-13]

basically everything which can be downloaded should be allowed

 

wut

 

 

So glad I'm not in Wales...

[bossman]

@X-13

 

I always thought you were hehe!

[X-13]

@X-13

 

I always thought you were hehe!

 

In wales? nah, I'm in Seine. [Ha, homophones!]

 

 

Sites promoting aggressive, degrading, or abusive opinions about any section of the population that could be identified by race, religion, gender, age, nationality, physical disability, economic situation, sexual preferences or any other lifestyle choice.

 

So... literally every website with a comment section is banned.

 

Seems the only webpage that is allowed is Google. Not the search results... just the Google homepage.

 

 

Le EDIT: The things that are allowed for staff only seems strange...

 

Gambling, Dating, SMS and mobile telephony services [which includes those ringtone selling subscription places], Web Chat

 

Literally NONE of those things have any use in a school. [Possibly web chat for support stuff.]

Edited July 7, 2015 by X-13
Copy/paste from the PDF borked spaces in the quote.

[sparkeh]

I actually think that (around here anyway) its the parents that need to be educated about behaving appropriately and setting a good example for their kids to follow.

 

Whilst we have had to deal with cyber bullying among our pupils, it pales compared to the amount of parents we have complaining about other parents behaving badly on Facebook/Twitter etc.

[synaesthesia]

Brilliant. Just brilliant. Laughably so "Don't block X because children need to learn to use X responsibly. But please block Y because it's dangerous. Ah, you probably should block X because X=Y"

 

I wonder if they've thought this through.

 

PS: No such thing as cyberbulling any more! (OFSTED Guidelines)

[X-13]

PS: No such thing as cyberbulling any more! (OFSTED Guidelines)

 

"Just turn off the computer!"

 

TBH, I can accept cyberbullying being removed, on the proviso that the actions that used to be considered "cyberbullying" just get called "bullying".

[synaesthesia]

I think that's what it now is, I only skimmed through the document last night. Don't think anyone with common sense treated it any differently anyway.

[pcstru]

It all seems to be based upon the views of one celebrity psychologist Tanya Bryon.

That would be Professor Tanya Bryon. You make her sound on a level with Gillian McKeith, but she earned her PHD and worked as a Clinical Psychologist for 18 years. She has also been awarded an honorary Doctorate by the University of York.

 

I'm not terribly keen on argument by authority, but it is not always a fallacy (when the authority is a domain expert). If we were talking about Politicians ignoring expert advice, I doubt many here would be taking rhetorical side swipes at extremely well qualified and experienced experts dismissively labelling them "celebrity psychologist". There would be an outcry of how politicians should not ignore expert advice. Some of the comments here are approaching the level of the politicians.

 

It seems to ignore the issues with ensuring children are on task, for example. It also seems to ignore the issues with things like copyright infringement or network security (and the requirements to protect data).

 

Does it? Perhaps you should give it the benefit of another read - phrases like "provide pupils with the opportunity to learn safe, responsible and considerate online behaviours in the context of supported educational activities". Filtering anyway is not a solution to classroom management, copyright infringement or network security, so why exactly does it need to be addressed in the context of a document taking about filtering standards in schools?

 

Personally, I would welcome it if someone published a similar set of standards for use in schools in England. Yes, there will likely be contradictions in there we would have to grapple with - blocking "sites which are advertising goods and services" but at least it would give us a good foundation on which to build a solution. I can claim some technical expertise but I'm not an expert on what is an effective strategy to keep kids safe online - are you? When those people speak, we really should listen carefully, not drown them out with derision.

[localzuk]

That would be Professor Tanya Bryon. You make her sound on a level with Gillian McKeith, but she earned her PHD and worked as a Clinical Psychologist for 18 years. She has also been awarded an honorary Doctorate by the University of York.

 

She's still a single person. One, out of the entire field of education! Not enough in my view.

 

Does it? Perhaps you should give it the benefit of another read - phrases like "provide pupils with the opportunity to learn safe, responsible and considerate online behaviours in the context of supported educational activities". Filtering anyway is not a solution to classroom management, copyright infringement or network security, so why exactly does it need to be addressed in the context of a document taking about filtering standards in schools?

 

Filtering is a tool for all of those things, in addition to teacher based classroom management and education. It certainly is a tool for network security - if I block all .exe's from downloading, that is definitely more secure... Filtering is a tool in the toolbag of all network managers and it serves a very useful purpose.

 

Personally, I would welcome it if someone published a similar set of standards for use in schools in England. Yes, there will likely be contradictions in there we would have to grapple with - blocking "sites which are advertising goods and services" but at least it would give us a good foundation on which to build a solution. I can claim some technical expertise but I'm not an expert on what is an effective strategy to keep kids safe online - are you? When those people speak, we really should listen carefully, not drown them out with derision.

 

I don't want a specific standard in England. Every school is different, with different expectations from their parents and with pupils of differing maturity. Our kids, for example, are a heck of a lot less street smart or mature than their contemporaries in an inner city school!

 

If anyone wishes to publish guidance or standards like this, I expect it to come from more sources than a single psychologist and a bit of arm waving from Ofsted. I want actual studies, based in evidence, with multiple people leading them.

[rich_tech]

I read it, felt some of it couldn't really be justified - gambling access for "Staff" was a bit comical to me, most of it was already implemented by us anyway here as its the common sense side of filtering on the whole, save for our own feelings on certain parts of it where things are open.

[pcstru]

She's still a single person. One, out of the entire field of education! Not enough in my view.

Anyone would think this highly qualified clinical psychologist with 18 years experience, much of which specialised in looking at harm to young people, wrote the paper or was the only contributor rather than that just being made up as part of your rhetorical ad-hominem dismissal!

Filtering is a tool for all of those things, in addition to teacher based classroom management and education. It certainly is a tool for network security - if I block all .exe's from downloading, that is definitely more secure... Filtering is a tool in the toolbag of all network managers and it serves a very useful purpose.

Yes filtering is a tool but it is not on it's own a solution to those things. My question which you avoided was why you would expect to see copyright infringement, network security or classroom management addressed in a document dealing with categorisation of content and it's filtering where the key issue is risk of harm to students vs the educational benefits of managed exposure?

I don't want a specific standard in England. Every school is different, with different expectations from their parents and with pupils of differing maturity. Our kids, for example, are a heck of a lot less street smart or mature than their contemporaries in an inner city school!

Are you sure you, a "single person", feel qualified to say that?

If anyone wishes to publish guidance or standards like this, I expect it to come from more sources than a single psychologist and a bit of arm waving from Ofsted. I want actual studies, based in evidence, with multiple people leading them.

 

The standard referred to is the list of content categories in appendix A. The document is a guidance document in which the standard is offered as government sanctioned best practice. You don't have to follow it (note the "Action Required" on page 2) where local circumstances necessitate a different approach but you may need to justify why you, a "single person" or your schools management team choose to take a different approach. If a child did come to harm and you have deviated from it, you will need good evidence for that, whereas if you had followed it, the government will need to defend it's position - not you. Worth noting that in any legal action where there would be a claim that an individual was harmed due to negligence (either the governments or yours), a court would be calling the likes of Dr Byron as an expert witness, not school IT technicians.

 

Personally, I think it would be very useful to have one for England. Such standards give us a good base level of documentation, we then only need to document where we differ rather than re-inventing the wheel from scratch. If we had a standard in England, I could give it to my Senior Systems Bod and say "set up the firewall like this". Suppliers could reference the standard - "out of the box, our solution complies with government guidance", it just helps everyone know what they are talking about. When we are asked to open up or block a site, we would have something to reference as to whether the request was good practice or not.

 

Generally filtering is a tool I deploy to provide a service to the school. I'm the tail, not the dog and frankly as a "single person" who's expertise is generally technical IT or (these days) woolly management fluff, I certainly don't feel competent to make a judgement on whether the educational benefits of social networking outweigh the risks. I'm rather surprised many here seem to and are so dismissive of what is a reasonably good distillation of expert opinion and research.

[localzuk]

Enough with your own ad-hominem attacks @pcstru. This implication that I am a "single person" is nonsensical, and childish. My view is merely my opinion, not the official guidance for an entire government! I haven't set our filtering policy in this school, I have contributed to it, sure, but as have my head teacher, SWGfL, Somerset CC and our SMT, along with our teaching staff.

 

Regarding the report and all of this being around a single person, the report is called "Safer children in a digital world: the report of the Byron Review". The first 13 pages have nearly every paragraph start with "I". Sure, she went and spoke to some other people, but the entire conclusion, the recommendations and the analysis is entirely performed by her. If it were a court case, she would be the expert witness, police witness, judge, jury and executioner. The only thing she isn't is the third party witness. It isn't peer reviewed research.

 

In a court case, as you reference, sure she could be called up as an expert witness, but I could most likely find a similar expert witness who contradicts her. Without a proper set of peer reviewer research backing up this guidance it is just the work of one woman still.

[GeekyPete]

Staff can't play angry birds or candy crush (games) but they can gamble which is really only gaming with real life consequences like financial ruin and addiction. Idiots.

 

Facebook allowed for 13+ yet SMS and webchat is blocked for KS3, KS4 and post 16??? Who needs SMS or webchat when you have access to Facebook? Again! Idiots.

Edited July 8, 2015 by GeekyPete

[X-13]

Staff can't play angry birds or candy crush (games) but they can gamble which is really only gaming with real life consequences like financial ruin and addiction. Idiots.

 

No, no... See it makes sense because reasons.

[SovietRussia]

yay for wales

[GeekyPete]

yay for wales

 

Nothing has made me smile more that a Yay for Wales from "Soviet Russia"... I just love that!

[3s-gtech]

PS: No such thing as cyberbulling any more! (OFSTED Guidelines)

 

We don't have yer hi-fallutin' OFSTED round these parts. Estyn instead.

[Dos_Box]

Wow, that seems to be a slightly confused document, especially when it comes to the recommended filtering catagories.

For instance whilst IT news sites are allowed unless they show ads, in which case none are allowed. Or sites which contain hacking information, which many IT news sites do when the big stories break.

And gaming sites too! There goes MinecraftEdu. Or is that not gaming?

Also of note is the violence catagory:

 

Any site that displays or promotes content related to violence against humans or animals is placed in this category, as are sites thatadvocate any means of harmingoneself such as self-mutilation oreuthanasia.

 

Does that include the BBC News covering wars, animal abuse stories or Dignitas or is that allowed?

Still at least you can look at your dream house if you are 11.

[GeekyPete]

I think it's important to understand that this is not the work of Prof Tanya Byron. In essence I agree with her. Pupils should be taught how to use social media safely and responsibly. However I don't think this should be the responsibility of the schools. It should be the responsibility of the Social media sites. When you sign up you should be guided through a CBT module and the features of the site unlocked as you complete the relevant training. In truth the author of this poorly executed document doesn't seem to have put their name to it. The only one who seems willing to identify with it is Huw Lewis AM, Minister for Education and Skills. For me such public support should cast doubt over his suitability and qualification for his role. However this is Government where the popular people get the jobs not the ones who know what they are doing.

[SovietRussia]

Nothing has made me smile more that a Yay for Wales from "Soviet Russia"... I just love that!

 

I am a multi-cultural soviet* from the middle of Wales

 

* I am really not I am just normal!

[pcstru]

Enough with your own ad-hominem attacks @pcstru. This implication that I am a "single person" is nonsensical, and childish. My view is merely my opinion, not the official guidance for an entire government! I haven't set our filtering policy in this school, I have contributed to it, sure, but as have my head teacher, SWGfL, Somerset CC and our SMT, along with our teaching staff.

It is YOUR assertion that this guidance is the work of one woman who you initially dismissed as a "celebrity psychologist" that is nonsensical and childish. YOU then downgraded your ad-hominem to "single person" (your words - not mine) which I rightly poke fun at in my reply. You are entitled to your opinion but so far that opinion seems to be simply dismissing a report based on ad-hominen, rather than actually dealing with any substance.

 

Regarding the report and all of this being around a single person, the report is called "Safer children in a digital world: the report of the Byron Review". The first 13 pages have nearly every paragraph start with "I".

Is this at last some actual substance to your argument? Perhaps you could link to the document you claim to be reading because the first 13 pages of the 2008 Report of the Byron Review (PDF pages numbered 4-16) contains 5 paragraphs that begin with the word "I" out of 116. I may have miscounted being in a bit of a hurry and all, but I'm pretty confident that what you describe as "nearly every paragraph") is actually less than 5%, under 1 in 20. Your claim is so risible that as Pauli once said, it's not even wrong.

 

You are of course as you say, entitled to your opinion even if that seems to arise from such a bad case of confirmation bias that you are blatantly ignoring the actual evidence in front of your eyes. Since you obviously aren't interested in actual evidence, it is probably best if I just leave you to fester with your ill-informed opinion.