Online safety resources for Governors

[enjay]

Does anyone have any good online safety training resources for school Governors? Thought I'd ask here before starting a trawl of the myriad results you get to that search term...

[TomFreeman]

We subscribe annually to E-safety Support (https://www.e-safetysupport.com/welcome) Lots of great stuff on there for reasonable price. There is a Online Training Course for governors included in there.

[enjay]

Thanks. I'm a "free member" with them, and use some of their resources. £600 per year seems like a lot though...

[Ditto]

Does anyone have any good online safety training resources for school Governors? Thought I'd ask here before starting a trawl of the myriad results you get to that search term...

 

Do you have a SLA with Babcock for your school? In governor capacity I attended a fair few and find them excellent - I think they have something for e-safety.

[elsiegee40]

Just tagging @esafety_officer as she may be able to recommend something specific

 

Are you looking for resources covering a specific area?

 

I am always cautious as eSafety is truly part of Safeguarding and I regularly feel that actually the online safety aspect is better presented as part of the Safeguarding and Prevent training that governors must receive. In their governance role it is important that it isn't seen as separate.

[enjay]

Happy to include it in their Safeguarding and Prevent training, I just want to include some! As for what I'm looking for, I don't really know. I guess something which highlights the main online safety risks and what a school's responsibilities are (and aren't), to which I could then add copies of our various policies, PSHE curriculum, etc.

[Ditto]

I can highly recommend Childnet - Childnet and I hope you find their resources helpful. We had them in for a session. The really had the knack of getting the messaging right for the target audience, be it Reception, Year6, parent or governors. I agree with @Elsieee40 that e-safety is part of safeguarding, but one distinction I would make is we would look to educate all our pupils on e-safety, but teaching staff and governors would be educated about safeguarding which includes e-safety.

[esafety_officer]

I provide specific online safety training for Govenors within my LA so it might be worth seeing if there is anything offered locally that you can access, although I am aware that the safeguarding provision for schools varies from area to area.

 

The focus for Governor training is usually more on their strategic safeguarding responsibilities, and they need to be able to offer support and challenge to ensure their school is fulfilling its statutory responsibilities. This means that the content for Governor training is likely to be quite different to that you would provide for staff.

 

The UKCCIS Education Group developed guidance for school governors to help governing boards support their school leaders to keep children safe online. I'd suggest that to be a really useful starting point.

 

I'd focus on 'Keeping Children Safe in Education' (KCSIE) and the Ofsted 'Inspecting Safeguarding' documents as they sets out clear responsibilities and expectations for Governors. I have blog posts here and here which might be useful. KCSIE highlights some of the main risks in annex C which may also be helpful.

 

The UK Safer Internet Centre have some information for Govenors as well.