Who performs "monitoring" at their Secondary schools?

[kennysarmy]

Was at a Smoothwall User Conference yesterday, struck me how many schools were using "Monitoring", we only have "Filtering" in place.

 

Wondered if this was now common to have some kind of monitoring in place on the internet enabled devices?

[bossman]

Only filtering here....why add another layer when you can give certain staff access to the reports on Smoothwall and let them make the decisions?

 

Only creates more cost and work for already snowed under departments...have yet to see the value long term in this kind of process...

[CHiLL]

We have Smoothwall for the majority of Internet filtering. We also have Impero for basic monitoring/captures. However we also have Visigo (by Smoothwall), which takes captures when keywords are detected and they rate the severity of the capture. High severity captures are sent directly to our DSL. It is effective from our experience.

[sonofsanta]

We do, but we only ever use it retroactively when looking for evidence after suspicions have been raised another way--no-one has the time to pro-actively monitor given how many false positives there are, and it's not worth the cost to us as a school (given our particular needs/intake) to pay for a pro-actively monitored solution.

 

Have had occasion to be grateful for it in the past when managing to provide useful evidence to police in the past, though. I can't say any more, but I won't be without it now.

[RLR]

We have Fortinet create reports that are sent to the relevent staff.

[Chrisbf1]

I thought it was an Ofsted requirement to monitor as well as filter

[localzuk]

Monitoring does not always mean that you need a technical solution to do this.

 

Our LEA put out advice on the new requirement when it came in, highlighting that a mix of setting up automatic logging with emailed reports for certain categories on web filters, and making sure there is always a member of staff present in the room when children are using the computers would be classed as monitoring.

 

However, if you allow children to use computers unsupervised, you should probably look at some form of active monitoring.

 

Also, monitoring doesn't always mean real-time monitoring.

[Bionic]

We monitor, but it is a purely manual task, carried out by me when I am able to. I use AB Tutor on all PC's and check 'now and then' to see what pupils are doing/accessing. If I spot anything of concern it is reported to the relevant person to follow up. All ICT suites also have the AB Tutor console installed on the teacher PC. Staff are aware and have been shown how to use the software to monitor, but I don't think many do this.

[mavhc]

I'd set it up so the most extreme keywords used get emailed to the safeguarding people.

 

What's really needed is decent statistics to see unusual levels of keyword detection, pupil x has 50% more keywords detected than average

[EdTech-Tom]

Wondered if this was now common to have some kind of monitoring in place on the internet enabled devices?

 

So, this is a pretty grey area unfortunately. In 2018 the government released Keeping Children Safe in Education. The statutory guidance, whilst long wasn't necessarily the most helpful... it says you need "appropriate" filtering and monitoring. Wonderfully vague!

 

On page 97 KCSIE does point to the UKSIC as a reference to what "appropriate" monitoring and filtering looks like Link here.

 

In my eyes, if a school can't identify what sites a student tries to access or searches a student performs and when then they may not be meeting the statutory guidance. A way to reduce the workload of monitoring (and trust me I get it, IT staff are expected to magic IT out of thin air, not realising this stuff takes time, effort and money) is to set up alerts for relevant people when a student searches for something such as "ISIS" or "How do I hide self harm".

 

You probably should be monitoring students, especially in a secondary school. Whether you choose to is up to you, but the government does call for it.

Edited November 5, 2019 by EdTech-Tom

[KevinB]

Two monitoring systems in use here. First is Smoothwall's safeguarding reports; these are set up to send daily reports to our student support team who also have access to the Smoothwall safeguarding portal for any immediate concerns. Secondly Impero's monitoring is set to send immediate alerts to safeguarding staff dependent on the severity of the alert raised.

[Opendium_Steve]

KCSIE is pretty clear that filtering and monitoring policies should be driven by risk assessments, so what is suitable for one school might not be suitable for another.

 

So what is "monitoring"? IMHO:

* Physically keeping an eye on what kids are doing - no tech required.

* Reports produced by your web filter.

* Reports produced by on-device agents (Impero, etc.)

 

David Wright (from SWGFL / UKSIC) reinforced this at last year's CTIRU conference: he said that monitoring doesn't have to be a technological thing, it might just be processes to ensure that staff have some physical oversight on what's going on. For some schools, monitoring tech is absolutely the right route to take, but for other schools no tech is required - drive all these decisions with your risk assessment!

 

You do need to know what's available so you can make an informed choice, and also look at where you can improve things at a minimal cost:

* If your existing web filter can produce reports but you're not using them, why not?

* Don't just assume that your filters are blocking all the bad stuff (they're definitely not!). If you never run any reports you definitely won't pick up on problem content being allowed through.

* If an alternative product costs the same as what you're currently using, works as well, but provides better reports, why not switch?

All of those things mean improved safeguarding for (essentially) free - you should jump at that opportunity, whatever your risk assessment says.

 

Take what vendors tell you (myself included probably ) with a pinch of salt. SmoothWall will of course be telling you you need monitoring software because they have a monitoring software product, I'm going to tell you to replace your web filter because we have a web filtering product. I don't think the vendors are being dishonest, but you obviously have to consider that they may be slightly biassed.

 

So to reiterate: do the paperwork - look at the products that are available, do your risk assessments, and make sure you show that you are sensibly balancing risk / cost / usability / time, etc. And do all this with an open mind - produce an honest and frank assessment rather than just trying to justify why you're not going to do the things you already decided you didn't want to do!