This document outlines various online safeguarding issues faced by learners such as cyberbullying, child sexual exploitation, and radicalization. It discusses statutory guidance around ensuring appropriate online filters and monitoring systems are in place to protect learners from accessing harmful or inappropriate online content. The goal is to empower learners to safely navigate the online world and mitigate online threats to their safety.

1. Safeguarding: online threats and safety

2. Scope
• Many of the key safeguarding challenges
faced by learners either occur online or are
amplified in a variety of online situations
•Some safeguarding challenges may be
mitigated online
•Online threats to safety will arise within and
without the learning setting
•Statutory safeguarding guidance and OfSTED
inspection framework highlight online safety

3. Specified safeguarding issues
• child sexual exploitation (CSE)
• bullying /cyberbullying
• domestic violence
• drugs
• fabricated or induced illness
• faith abuse
• female genital mutilation
• forced marriage
• challenging family
circumstances
• honour based violence
• homelessness
• initiation/hazing type violence
and rituals
• serious crime
• breast ironing
• gangs and youth violence
• child criminal exploitation:
county lines
• gender-based violence
• mental health
• private fostering
• radicalisation
• sexting
• teenage relationship abuse:
peer on peer
• modern slavery and
trafficking
• upskirting

4. Safeguarding goal
• To empower learners to navigate their way
through the virtual and online worlds in ways
that are informed, beneficial, confident and
safe
• As many of our learners are now studying at
home and online, this assumes even greater
importance than usual

5. Statutory guidance
• As schools and colleges increasingly work online,
it is essential that learners are safeguarded from
potentially harmful and inappropriate online
material. As such, governing bodies and
proprietors should ensure appropriate filters and
appropriate monitoring systems are in place.
Additional information to support governing
bodies and proprietors keep their children safe
online is provided in Annex C (KCSIE 2019)

6. Statutory guidance: annex C
• Content: being exposed to illegal, inappropriate
or harmful material: for example fake news,
racist, radical and extremist views
• Contact: being subjected to harmful online
interaction with other users: for example
commercial advertising as well as adults posing
as children or young adults: and
• Conduct: personal online behaviour that
increases the likelihood of, or causes, harm: for
example making, sending and receiving explicit
images, or online bullying

7. Statutory guidance: IT system filters
• Providers’ IT systems should use appropriate filters and
monitoring systems in order to identify access to inappropriate
sites and content
• The use/choice of filters should be informed partly by Prevent
Duty risk assessment
• Prevent Guidance: providers are required to ensure learners are
safe from terrorist and extremist material when accessing the
internet in school/college by establishing appropriate levels of
filtering
• KCSIE: providers must ensure learners should not be able to access
harmful or inappropriate material from their IT system. However,
providers will need to be careful that “over-blocking” does not
lead to unreasonable restrictions as to what learners can be
taught with regards to online teaching and safeguarding

8. Inappropriate content - filters
CONTENT EXPLANATION
Discrimination Promotes unjust or prejudicial treatment of people with
protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010
Drugs/substance
misuse
Displays or promotes the illegal use of drugs or substances
Extremism Promotes terrorism and terrorist ideologies, violence or
intolerance
Malware/hacking Promotes the compromising of systems including anonymous
browsing and other filter bypass tools as well as sites hosting
malicious content
Pornography Displays sexual acts or explicit images
Self-harm Promotes or displays deliberate self harm including suicide and
eating disorders
Violence Displays or promotes use of physical force intended to hurt or kill

9. Filter system features
Age-appropriate, differentiated filtering Ability to vary filtering by age and role
Circumvention – identify /manage
techniques that circumvent your system
VPN, proxy services etc
Control User able to control filter and to permit
or deny access to specific content
Group/site management Deployment consistently across multiple
sites with central oversight
Identification Capacity to identify users / terminals
Multiple language support Capacity to manage relevant languages
Reporting Capacity to report inappropriate content
being accessed so it can be blocked
Reports Provides clear historical information on
the websites visited by your users

10. Statutory guidance: IT system filters
• Use of IT system filters and the information it
provides should be covered and cross- referred to
in your organisation’s Privacy/GDPR policy
• What would you do if your filtering system
identified that a network user had typed into the
browser one after the other:
House of Commons
How to make a nuclear explosive ?

11. Statutory guidance: IT system filters
• Guidance on filtering can be accessed on:
UK Safer Internet Centre: appropriate filtering and
monitoring
And from the
National Education Network

12. Deciphering language used online
RUMORF LMIRL WTGP ASL PIR
POS PAL KPC ROFL 420
8 BMS MERK GOT FOOD
YOLO SKET Any more? Any more? Any more?

13. Deciphering language used online
RUMORF
Are you male
or female?
LMIRL
Lets meet in
real life
WTGP
Want to go
private?
ASL
Age sex
location
PIR
Parent in
room
POS
Parent over
shoulder
PAL
Parents are
listening
KPC
Keep
parents
clueless
ROFL
Rolling on
floor
laughing
420
Marijuana
8
Oral sex
BMS
Baby making
sex
MERK
Murder or
kill
GOT
Going out of
town
FOOD
Drugs
YOLO
You only live
once
SKET
Slut
Any more? Any more? Any more?

14. Meeting people online
Getting home from work WonderWoman logged on. She checked her buddy list and saw that
GoTo123 was online. She sent him a message and he replied:
1. WonderWoman:
I’m glad you are there.
I think someone was
following me home.
Really weird!!
2. GoTo123:
LOL. Why would anyone
follow you? Don’t you
live in a safe area?
3. WonderWoman:
I do. Safe & boring! I
must be imagining
things. I couldn’t see
anyone when I looked
4. GoTo123:
Unless you gave your
name out online – you
haven’t done that have
you?
5. WonderWoman:
No!!! I am not daft!!
6. GoTo123:
Did you have football
today?
7. WonderWoman:
Yes. We won! Of course!
We will win the league –
no question
8. GoTo123:
Great. Who did you play?
9. WonderWoman:
We played the usual
local lot. Their outfits
are so gross! They
look like bees
10. GoTo123:
What’s your team called
again?
11. WonderWoman:
The Valley Cats. That’s
why we have the kittens
on our shirts. It’s the
under 17s.
12. GoTo123
Did you score?
13. WonderWoman:
Thankfully NO!! I am
in goal. Disaster if I did
– I’m number 7
14. GoTo123:
Goalkeepers are always
underestimated. 7 is my
lucky number
15. WonderWoman:
I have to go – got to cook
dinner for my mum when
she gets home. Bye!
16. GoTo123:
Speak later. Take care.
LMIRL. Bye

15. Meeting people online
Ashleigh Hall was 16 and a learner at her local FE college. She was popular and had
over 400 friends on Facebook. One autumn she added a handsome bare-chested 17
year old boy to her list of friends. He called himself Peter Cartwright. Ashleigh was
one of 173 people, mostly young women, to accept him as an online friend. She
added him to other networking sites and began to chat with him regularly.
One month later “Cartwright” enticed Ashleigh to meet him in person. She packed
an overnight bag and told her mother she was staying overnight with a girlfriend.
“Cartwright” texted Ashleigh to say that he was playing football and that his dad
would pick her up at the station and bring her to the house. This was followed by
another text from the “father” from another phone.
Within hours Ashleigh had been raped and killed. Her body was dumped in a field.
Peter Cartwright and his father never existed. The fake Facebook profile was created
by convicted sex offender Peter Chapman. He was subsequently arrested and
sentenced to 35 years in jail

16. Meeting people online
Ashleigh’s college friends created a set of rules to help keep young people safe as
they met people online: They are called Ashleigh’s Rules.
• If you meet someone in real life who you have only met
previously online, take some friends with you
• When you meet them in real life meet in a public, well lit place
• Tell a friend the name of the person you are meeting, where you
are going and when you will be back. They should alert someone
if you do not return on time
• Arrange to call a friend during your real life meeting to confirm
you are ok. Your friend should alert someone if you do not call
• Never accept anyone on social networking sites you don’t know
• Never trust anyone you have only met online
• Never tell a stranger online anything personal about yourself, like
your date of birth or where you live

17. Sexting – the law
• The sharing online of intimate photographs – with or without consent
• Protection of Children Act 1978, Chapter 37 as amended by sect 45 of the
Sexual Offences Act 2003 creates the following offences:
• a) to take, permit to be taken, or to make any indecent photograph, or pseudo-
photograph of a child:
• b) to distribute or show such indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs
• c) to have in his possession such indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs
with a view to their being distributed or shown by himself or others
• Applies to all under 18s
• It's not a crime to send intimate images or videos of yourself privately to
another person if both are consenting adults. It's a crime to show intimate
images or videos, send them to another person, upload them to a website, or
threaten to do this, without consent.
• Circumstances and motive are irrelevant to the question of indecency
• An image on the internet has no natural lifespan
• A prosecution for any of these offences can place the offender on the sex
offenders’ register for a period commensurate with their sentence – times may
be reduced for under 18s

18. Sexting
• First time offenders may not always face prosecution, although authorities will
wish to ensure that any young people involved are safe
• CEOP urges a balance be struck between a criminal justice approach and an
educational and safeguarding approach
• Children and young people obviously have a natural and healthy propensity to
experiment with and explore their developing sexuality. This can include taking
and sharing explicit photographs
• The reasons why children and young people post sexual images of themselves
will vary
• Children and young people creating indecent images of themselves may be an
indicator of other underlying vulnerabilities and risks
• Some self-taken indecent images will be as a result of grooming and facilitation
by adult offenders
• Chief Police Officers do not support the prosecution or criminalisation of
children for taking indecent images of themselves and sharing them
• They support a safeguarding approach being at the heart of any intervention –
the welfare of the child should be paramount

19. Sexting – curriculum intervention
• Learners need to understand the legal position
• They also need to understand the risks of sexting – personal and
professional
• Given that very many young people are and are likely to continue
sexting, the safeguarding curriculum challenge is to deliver
curriculum content that enables learners to make informed
choices about whether, what and with whom to share -
empowerment rather than prohibition
• CEOP resources
• Practical strategies
• Encouragement to report problems arising from sexting to
Designated Safeguarding Officers

20. Prevent - radicalisation
• Much radicalisation occurs and/or has a significant element of
online content and contact
• Filtering of provider systems should pick up key words and the
accessing of the websites and email addresses of
proscribed/banned organisations
• Examples of online material of concern include:
• Articles, images, speeches or videos that promote terrorism or
encourage violence
• Content encouraging people to commit acts of terrorism
• Websites made by terrorist or extremist organisations
• Videos of terrorist attacks
• These can be reported to: https://www.gov.uk/report-terrorism
• The Government publishes a list of proscribed organisations.
These can be found on:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/proscribed-terror-
groups-ororganisations--2

21. Radicalisation – grooming – critical thinking
• Grooming describes the process by which radicalisers and sexual
abusers draw unsuspecting individuals into a relationship of trust
from which their actions can be manipulated
• The groomer has a medium to long-term plan for the individual
being groomed
• The individual being groomed is unaware of the grooming plan,
experiencing it only in consecutive “baby steps”
• If the individual being groomed knew of the groomer’s plan it
would cease to have any power
• The safeguarding curriculum challenge is to deliver curriculum
content that enables learners to recognise the features of
grooming and to report them to DSOs
• In the case of radicalising grooming the challenge is to support
learners to critique content they may come across – the
development of critical thinking

22. Radicalisation – grooming – critical thinking
1
Manipulating
2
Respecting
3
Pressuring
4
Threatening
5
Isolating
6
Pretending to
have “special
knowledge”
7
Being a true
friend
8
Forcing a
decision to be
made now
9
Encouraging
the target to
ask questions
10
Seeming to
have all the
answers
11
Being kind
12
Having a sense
of humour
13
Making the
target feel
guilty
14
Being willing to
change their
mind
15
Being
completely
upfront
16
Not being
completely
upfront
17
Providing
evidence for
their
arguments
18
Not providing
evidence for
their
arguments
???? ???

23. Radicalisation – critical questioning
Develop questions that can always be asked of online contact/
content:
• What is the evidence for this?
• What happens to me if things go wrong?
• Why don’t you respect me?
• Why can’t I say “no” and still be friends with you?
• What are the arguments against this?
• What is the organisation you belong to called?
• Why shouldn’t I tell my family and friends about this?
• What would you do if I told the police about this?
• Any others?
Learners can choose their five favourite questions, drawing from
their own and those of others- and keep them as the set of
questions they will always ask

24. Radicalisation – critical thinking – what is evidence?
• Going back to the grid of radicalising behaviours – take a
scenario and for each of the points identify examples /
evidence for their presence or non – presence
• Explore what the work “evidence” means:
• Someone’s made up story?
• A joke?
• A poem?
• Provable information that supports an argument
• Information that comes from more than one source
• Facts that give you a reason for something

25. • Look at the circulated case study:
• What could have you done prior to the events happening to
help avoid them and keep yourself safe?
• What could you have done once the events had occurred or as
they were occurring?
• What should your organisation have done proactively to help
prevent situations such as these occurring?
• What should your organisation do once the situations have
occurred?
Safeguarding staff