A Summary of the Internet policy

 

We have extensive ICT equipment at Trinity and hope always to be at the forefront of educational technology. It is essential that these resources are always used responsibly and respectfully. We therefore have an Internet Policy which we hope you will agree to as part of our home-school agreement.

 

Introduction

 

Trinity recognises that children of today need skills, attitudes and knowledge that will enable them to access the increasing range of technology available to them now and in the future. The internet offers a vast range of resources, which must be made safely available to children to support the curriculum and to equip them for the future.

 

Aims

 

• To offer safe access to the rich information resources available on the internet for staff, children and community users.

• To develop appropriate skills to analyse and evaluate resources available on the internet.

• To ensure safe access by use of approved filters, expert advice, consistent monitoring and agreement of high standards of practice by school, parents, children and community.

• To maintain a school website which is informative, attractive, educational and safe.

 

Responsibility

 

Internet access, because it may lead to any publicly available site in the world, opens classrooms to electronic information sources, which have not been selected by parents or teachers as appropriate for children. Parents and carers are responsible for setting and conveying the standards that children should follow when using media and information sources. To this end, Trinity supports and respects each family's right to decide whether or not to arrange internet access at home, and to expect safe, monitored access at school. During school, staff will guide pupils toward appropriate materials, use approved filters where available, ensure children have supervised access to the internet, and ensure the implementation of this policy. The school will not publish any picture where a child can be easily identified by name. Failure to comply with this policy will result in access to ICT facilities being withdrawn.

 

Agreement

 

In line with the above, and as part of the school ICT programme, Trinity agrees to offer pupils supervised access to the internet. In order to take advantage of this opportunity, all pupils must obtain parental permission by returning our home-school agreement as evidence of approval. All members of the staff or community accessing the internet at Trinity are bound by this policy and sign an agreement to that effect.