Internet Filtering – Part 2

Ofsted have reported that schools should “manage” their own Internet filtering – but what does this mean?

There are a number of elements involved in Internet filtering: policies (who can access which categories); blacklisting (illegal sites); whitelisting (overriding block policies); site categories; and reports.

Initially it takes quite a bit of work to get this right, and in truth it will never be exactly right. No filtering technology can automatically manage itself, it requires constant tweaking to update white lists, recategorise individual sites, add new users to existing policies amongst other things. When I say constant, it depends on the size of the site. A secondary school may have many more users than a small primary school, but then again a secondary school may well have an in-house team with the responsibility for managing the filtering (whether that is right or not is debatable).

A very large proportion of schools use the LA supported filtering. LA’s take a lot of stick, some rightly so – hugely overly restricting, not listening to users (schools) wishes are the two most common complaints. I do empathise with the LA’s in some respects, it is very difficult to keep everyone happy. One school may view a particular site as appropriate while another school believes the same site is inappropriate.

In schools which have local filtering control I have seen some wide and varied policies, and some astonishing ones. For example in a large secondary school where the technical team has the responsibility, the network manager blocks 80% of all categories for all staff and children, yet opens all categories for himself “because he needs to”, and this is a technology college!

More often than not a primary school will not have the staff to carry out such tasks, whether it has the technical expertise or not. Internet filtering requires very little if any technical knowledge to operate let alone manage but it can be a burden on a very small team.

Managing Internet filtering is not leaving it up to someone else, even if that person/company/LA controls it, there is a big difference between managing and controlling. You don’t have to have local control in the school in order to manage your Internet filtering.

In my opinion, in order to manage your Internet filtering you should be able to answer yes to the following questions, if you answer no or don’t know you are not managing:

1. Do you have different filtering policies set up for different year groups, and for staff?
2. Is filtering discussed at SLT meetings in order to adjust policies?
3. Does your SLA cover how quickly a site is white or black listed when a member of staff calls the Helpdesk? (it should be no longer than 15 minutes).
4. Have you discussed with your provider, either in house or external, which Internet filtering reports are required and how often?
5. Do you have reports for children/young people and staff?
6. Do you receive these reports and read them?

(Note: my reference to “you” above refers to the person responsible for ICT in the school AND the Head).

I would love to hear your views, do you agree, or do you disagree? Does your school do something different?

Leave a comment or Tweet me: @esafetyadviser

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *