LEA web filters

[mikeprice]

I have started to investigate our current system (via LEA) and I have been very disappointing in the response - i.e. they could probably give us some kind of report in a week or so

 

I was wondering if other that use LEA facilites have the same set up

 

however - the plot thickens - I have talked to the Head about getting a web filter of our own - I was looking at Censornet

BUT she was talking to another Head today and she was of the opinion that our LEA CAN show online reports of incidents - pretty much real time

 

I was wondering what other experience is of LEA system (especially anyone in Halton - although that may be a long shot) - the last one I had contact with was great - I could log on at any time and change things and check reports.

 

TIA

 

Mike

[IrritableTech]

We left our LEA a few years ago, but at that time reports took days when we could get them. Schools need reports within an hour or so, the quicker the better.

 

Look at the latest keeping children safe in education documentation. Pupils should be monitored - if it's taking days to get reports you've missed an opportunity to intervene and I'd argue your supplier isn't compliant.

[mikeprice]

and if the supplier is the LEA

 

who SHOULD be acting in our interests

 

fill in the rest yourself

[JordanT91]

LEAs are often hesitant to dish out the relevant permissions. For example, I have pretty much free reign on my school's Rocket but other schools have to send in requests to have websites blocked/unblocked that can often take a few days.

[mikeprice]

LEAs are often hesitant to dish out the relevant permissions. For example, I have pretty much free reign on my school's Rocket but other schools have to send in requests to have websites blocked/unblocked that can often take a few days.

 

Yup - sound like us - but they don't like us much (cos we have me rather than paying them for carp service!) so that could be why!

[Patrick]

We are lucky, our LEA uses lightspeed and i can't fault it really.

[GuyJD]

I suppose it depends on the LEA, our Lea filtering says that it can take up to 12 hours to process 7 days of data but I just ran a report to show every url I've accessed in the past 7 days and it returned in 6 minutes, easy stuff like top 10 denied urls only takes a couple of seconds to process.

[Davit2005]

I have started to investigate our current system (via LEA) and I have been very disappointing in the response - i.e. they could probably give us some kind of report in a week or so

 

I was wondering if other that use LEA facilites have the same set up

 

however - the plot thickens - I have talked to the Head about getting a web filter of our own - I was looking at Censornet

BUT she was talking to another Head today and she was of the opinion that our LEA CAN show online reports of incidents - pretty much real time

 

I was wondering what other experience is of LEA system (especially anyone in Halton - although that may be a long shot) - the last one I had contact with was great - I could log on at any time and change things and check reports.

 

TIA

 

Mike

 

We implemented a filtering device at the first school I worked at. The LEA was shocking. We had to choose the LEA as the upstream proxy but we pointed it to the more relaxed proxy for everyone and then let our filtering solution distinguish between who should have access to stuff and who shouldn't. It made the transition away from the LEA provided Internet connection so much simpler and less painfull when it happened.

[Michael]

If you use a Safeguarding tool such as NetSupport DNA, it will show you reports pretty much in real time.

[w00dy01]

We use a product called Iceni (created by a company called Opendium) for our filtering.

 

Using this we can run reports of internet logs for an IP address or username whenever we want. They also have word cloud reports that show searched for terms in different categories.

 

They are very competitive on prices compared to other web filters out there and their support is fantastic. They have done custom fixes specifically for our needs.

 

Well worth a look if anyone is thinking of jumping ship from their LEA or current filtering solution.

[Opendium_Steve]

I'd definitely reiterate what IrritableTech said - the Keeping Children Safe guidelines and UKSIC advice are both very specific about the minimum level of monitoring schools must do. Producing reports that identify users is absolutely required and if you can't do this in a timely manor then I'd say you're not complying with the safeguarding requirements. Plenty of filtering systems out there - shop around, ask for demos; at the very least it'll give you an idea of what's possible so you can compare them to the LEA's systems.

[mikeprice]

Update:

 

I have been talking (well emailing) people at the LEA and they claim all their systems are 100% compliant.

 

So I questioned the requirement to produce reports in a timely manner and it has all gone quiet since then

I am wondering if they were unaware of this change and are checking??

 

Main worrying things is that This is the only school in the area (that I know of) that has its own IT tech - pretty much all the others just trust the LEA so if they drop the ball...

well - make up the rest yourself!

[GrumbleDook]

When working at the LA, the system we operated was that with great power comes great responsibility.

 

If a school took over their own filter they had access to all the relevant reports and so on. It had to be signed off by at least the Head, and they always had to have an open conversation with myself ... a) to make sure that it was a choice for the right reasons and b) to make sure that the Head new how to make sure the people managing it could be held accountable.

 

Things have changed since then, and if I was back at the LA I would be saying that either the LA had staff dedicated to the safeguarding role, who had regular contact with the relevant staff in schools ... or the schools were given the access to the systems themselves and had regular training to make sure it was being used properly.

 

If your LA has the dedicated staff, then yes ... there is an element of trust that needs to be reviewed (and the LA should be as transparent as they can here) but try not to throw it all away until it gets to the point where it is clear that the school *can't* fulfil it's stu tory requirements.

[Opendium_Steve]

Update:

 

I have been talking (well emailing) people at the LEA and they claim all their systems are 100% compliant.

 

So I questioned the requirement to produce reports in a timely manner and it has all gone quiet since then

I am wondering if they were unaware of this change and are checking??

 

I must admit that the guidance doesn't specifically say that reports must be timely, but I think taking a week to generate ad-hoc reports would be difficult to defend when compared to other filtering systems which can do it in minutes. As well as the more urgent ad-hoc reports, it seems clear that schools also need to review activity on their networks regularly - we advise our customers to schedule standardised reports to automatically be generated on a weekly or daily basis, so that they can be reviewed to pick up anything concerning. And those kinds of reports aren't just about finding stuff people were/should have been blocked for, it also lets the schools catch children at risk of abuse or self harm, etc.

 

The UKSIC's advice is very clear that the reports must be able to identify the users though, and that's something a lot of the LEA systems can't do yet.

 

Main worrying things is that This is the only school in the area (that I know of) that has its own IT tech - pretty much all the others just trust the LEA so if they drop the ball...

well - make up the rest yourself!

 

Surely schools should still be doing a risk assessment as part of their safeguarding responsibilities, so these things should still be considered even if the answer is "we trust the LEA to do it". I certainly have concerns that at schools that don't have an IT tech there is probably no one reviewing reports/logs and just trust that the filters will catch everything (hint: they won't ).