Internet Usage Policy Including Social Networking Guidance

Setting URN: EY398808

Policy Document

Internet Usage Policy including Social Networking Guidance

Technology has developed over recent years and is continuing to evolve. The internet contains awealth of information as well as having a profound effect on the way we communicate includinginstant messaging, emailing and text messaging.

Pre-school staffare expected to use a range of technologicalresources to manage their roles as professionals; to be enabled to use the internet to research andcommunicate professionally; to use online systems to track and record the progress of children andyoung people and to share their work; to communicate with parents and carers through newsletters,email or the internet and to be able to manage administrative tasks and systems.

Any abusive, inappropriate or illegal misuse of ICT equipment by a member of staff or manager should bereported immediately to the registered person. Where misuse relates to abuse and safeguarding,Children’s Social Care, the Local Authority Designated Officer, Ofsted or the Police must be notifiedas applicable.

In line with, ‘Guidance for Safer Working Practice for Adults who Work with Children and YoungPeople’ it will not be considered appropriate for early years practitioners or their managers to engagein personal online communications with children and young people, parents or carers. (Extract from ‘Guidance for Safer Working Practice for Adults who work with Children and YoungPeople’.)

Access to Inappropriate Images and Internet

There are no circumstances that will justify adults possessing indecent images of children. Staffwho access and possess links to such websites will be viewed as a significant and potential threat tochildren. Accessing, making and storing indecent images of children is illegal. This will lead tocriminal investigation and the individual being barred from working with children, if proven. Staffshould not use equipment belonging to the pre-school to access adult pornography; neithershould personal equipment containing these images or links to them be brought into the workplace.

This will raise serious concerns about the suitability of the adult to continue to work with children.Staff must ensure that children are not exposed to any inappropriate images or web links. Chelford Pre-school will ensure that internet equipment used by children have the appropriate controlswith regards to access. e.g. personal passwords should be kept confidential.

This means that staffmust:

• follow their pre-school’s guidance on the use of IT equipment

• ensure that children are not exposed to unsuitable material on the internet

• ensure that any films or material shown to children are age appropriate

Where indecent images of children or other unsuitable material are found, the police and LocalAuthority Designated Officer (LADO) should be immediately informed. Adults should not attempt toinvestigate the matter or evaluate the material themselves, as this may lead to evidence beingcontaminated which in itself can lead to a criminal prosecution.

Social Networking

It is to be recognised that pre-school staff are likely to use socialnetworking sites in their recreational time on their own personal computers.It must be ensured that the use of such sites will not compromise professional integrity or bring the Pre-school into disrepute. The adding of children and young people, parents and carers as‘friends’ to a social networking site is not allowed. It must be recognised that social networkingsites and mobile technologies can be used for negative and anti-social purposes. Cyber bullying, forexample, is to be considered as unacceptable as any other form of bullying and effective sanctionsmust be in place to deal with such concerns. Any known or suspected incidents must be reportedimmediately to the DSL (Hannah Lawson).

Internet usage policy

The internet can be freely accessed for pre-school matters (including finding resources, planning etc)during working hours. Personal use is not permitted at any time.

In order to protect our pre-school:

• Staff must be aware of viruses which could lurk in emails. Whilst using the pre-school internet, staff must not open any emails from names that aren’t recognised in order to protectthe pre-school computer from potential viruses.

• It is vitally important that staff are careful about content that they search out or download.Every time you view a page on the internet, it is possible to trace your visit back to the pre-school computer. This means that it is possible to tell if the pre-school computer was being used to lookat inappropriate web pages.

• Staff must be aware of their responsibilities to the pre-school when using social networking sitessuch as Facebook. Our confidentiality policy must be adhered to at all times, even outside ofworking hours. It is important to maintain your status as a professional childcare worker andtherefore we ask all staff not toengage in online friendships with parents.

Disciplinary action could result if the pre-school is brought into disrepute.

• Staff must not post anything onto social networking sites such as ‘Facebook’ that could beconstrued to have any impact on the pre-school’s reputation.

• Staff must not post photos related to the setting on any internet site including children, colleagues, parents or the pre-school uniform.

• Staff must not post anything onto social networking sites that would offend any other memberof staff or parent using the pre-school.

• Children are to be encouraged to use the internet if appropriate but must be supervised at alltimes.

Staff and volunteers should also be provided with some guidance to help protect them, please seethe ‘safeguarding yourself’ factsheet below:

Safeguarding yourself – Fact sheet

Guidance on the personal use of social networking sites for staff:

Due to the increasing personal use of social networking sites, staff and volunteers within thepre-school should be aware of the impact of their personal use upon their professional position.

• In practice, anything posted on the Internet will be there forever and is no longer in your control.
• Remember when something is on the Internet even if you remove it, it may have already beenduplicated by a “web crawler” and so will always be there. Current and future employers and serviceusers may see this. Keep all professional work completely separate from your private life.

The following guidance, in addition to the above, will safeguard adults from allegations and protect anindividual’s privacy as well as safeguard vulnerable groups.

Failure to comply with the following may result in the pre-school taking disciplinary action.

• Social networking sites such as facebook have a range of privacy settings that are often set upto ‘expose’ your details to anyone. When ‘open’ anyone can find you from a search of thesocial networking site or even from a Google search. Therefore, it is important to change yoursetting to ‘just friends’ so that your details, comments, photographs can only be seen yourinvited friends
• Have a neutral picture of yourself as your profile image
• Do not post embarrassing material or comments that may call into question your employmentstatus
• Do not accept friendship requests unless you know the person or want to accept them – beprepared for being bombarded with friendship requests from people you do not know
• Do not make friendship requests with service users
• Choose your social networking friends carefully and ask about their privacy controls
• Do not accept friendship requests on social networking or messaging sites from the children,young people (or their parents) or service users that you work with. young people remember that ex pupils may still have friends that you may have contact withthrough your work
• Exercise caution. For example, if you write on a friends ‘wall’ on facebook all of their friendscan see your comment even if they are not your friend
• There is a separate privacy setting for facebook groups and networks. You may have yourown profile set to private, however, when joining a group or a network please be aware thateveryone in that group or network is able to see your profile
• If you have younger friends or family members on your social networking groups who arefriends with children, young people (or their parents) or service users that you work with, beaware that posts you write will be visible to them
• Do not use your personal or professional details (email or telephone) as part of your profile
• If you or a friend are tagged in an online photo album (facebook, flickr) the whole photo albummay be visible to their friends, your friends and anyone else tagged in the photo album
• You do not have to be friends with anyone to be tagged in their photo album, if you are taggedin a photo you can remove the tag but not the photo
• You should be aware of the privacy settings on photo sharing websites
• Your friends may take and post photos that you may not be happy about. You need to speakto them first to request that it is removed rather than contacting the web provider.

If you have difficulty in implementing any of this guidance speak to the DSL (Hannah Lawson).

Policy amended and adopted at committee meeting September, 2017.

Internet security settings and anti-virus checked by Chelford School IT Technician 13.9.17