This post has been gestating for a little while. Prompted originally by a colleague asking for advice about what to do if a parent refused to sign an Acceptable Use Policy at school, I finally decided that I'd better get down and write after a periodic bout of ranting on Twitter about web filtering and how to teach e-safety. The lively discussion on Twitter also threw up a couple of very useful resources, more of which later.
Refusal to sign is a serious issue - so why sign?
I would freely admit to using my mobile to capture "learning moments" when I didn't have a digital camera to hand, but this document has certainly given me pause for thought.
To add an edit after posting, Becta released some new training materials this week for "Safer Internet Day". To access these, click here.
I am making an assumption that the overwhelming majority of schools have an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) for ICT. It's a very important document and should be much more than just a policy in a folder. In order to make parents believe that the school takes e-safety very seriously, many schools require parents to sign a copy of the policy, and this is where the problem of refusal can begin. As a policy of the school the AUP will have been approved by the governing body and breaches are therefore enforceable along whatever lines that the policy suggests. Because of this, signing the policy is an unnecesary step that adds spurious legality to what is already an enforceable document and could cause argument and problems. By all means give parents a copy of the policy (better still, a set of rules couched in child-friendly language), but it must be clear that this is not negotiable.
Once the situation has arisen that a parent has refused to sign an AUP (because that is your school's current position) then I would suggest that talking is the way forward. The first, and most obvious point is that by refusing to sign the policy the school should not allow the child access to its ICT systems and therefore the child will not be receiving his legal entitlement to the National Curriculum. As in the case of withdrawl from RE, it is not reasonable to request that the school makes alternative provision for that child and therefore could reasonably request that the parent supervise the child during ICT lessons. A second point would be to consider the impact on access to school systems outside of school such as VLEs, blogsites, online reporting systems etc. Again, if the parent refused to sign then the school could not provide passwords to access these systems. Both of these steps would directly impact the education of the child in question. Perhaps, more important than this is to consider the emotional and social impact on the child. They may be exposed to taunting and bullying as a result of this point of difference.
One argument I heard put was that the child was too young to understand an AUP, and in anycase much of the content wasn't relevant to them. I disagree with this completely. Foundation and KS1 children routinely access the web at school, and although they are usually given no freedom to browse, many do have access to school blogs etc. Parents may also be expected to login to systems at home to download or to help with assignments etc. I would go back to my earlier point about giving out a set of rules in child friendly language.
The bottom line is that having required a parent to sign an AUP, refusal to comply puts the school in a difficult situation and might suggest that the parent looks for a school whose AUP they could agree with. Most schools I know would prefer to avoid being backed into a corner over this sort of issue and it's worth considering if getting parents to sign an AUP is really achieving what you want. If you think that is something that you are going to persist with, then I would suggest that putting down the consequences of a failure to comply would be a sensible measure.
What should be included in an AUP?
The first point to note about an AUP is that it applies to everyone in school, staff and children alike. For this reason, I suggested above that, especially for younger children, schools should consider a summary set of rules in child friendly language. I would be very happy to receive examples of child friendly ICT rules that I will share via this blog.
All the adults in a school should be under no illusions as to the importance of an AUP, and I was very pleased to be sent a link to this discussion document from Kent County Council would be an excellent starter for debate in a staff meeting or INSET day. Issues discussed in it include:
- Use of personal equipment (phones etc) to take photo, video and audio recordings of children;
- Teacher use of social networking sites;
- Attempts by minors to "friend" adults via social networks or engage in online conversations;
- What constitutes inaapropriate content;
- Use of school equipment such as laptops at home.
I would freely admit to using my mobile to capture "learning moments" when I didn't have a digital camera to hand, but this document has certainly given me pause for thought.
The discussion about social networking and online chatrooms etc is something that I've blogged about before (here and here-complete with excellent and amusing video) and I think this document, or something like it should be a compulsory part of the teacher training process. This issue is made all the more pressing as a result of the General Teaching Council's proposal to set up a new code of conduct for teachers. (BBC news article about this here). Teachers should be under no illusion about the seriousness of the issues raised here that could result in disciplinary action, summary dismissal, or even prosecution.
All of the issues in this document should, in my view, be included in an AUP for school and staff should be reminded of it on a regular basis. It's interesting to review the AUP I wrote for Crumpsall Lane back in 2002 in the light of this document, and I have to say that I'm still pretty pleased with it. It needs updating, but could easily be used as the basis for any new AUP that you might consider writing for your school. Again, I would appreciate copies of any updated versions so that I can share them.
By now you will realise that I consider that an AUP and the way it relates to the adults in school is as least as important, if not more so, than it is for the children. My experience is that adults in school are just as likely to break AUP guidelines as children. It is for this reason that I think it is more effective to have a simple set of rules for children to follow, and a detailed AUP for adults in school to sign. This view is formed as a result of my experience in primary schools and secondary colleagues may differ in their approach - I would be delighted to hear your views.
This emphasis on AUPs should not diminish the role of e-safety teaching in school; on the contrary, I would hope that by actively discussing issues such as those outlined above it will help illustrate to teachers the necessity for regular discussion and teaching of e-safety issues in school.
My last plea would be that in order to make the AUP an active and enforceable document, all schools should review how they monitor web access in school. This document may help define your school's current position.
To add an edit after posting, Becta released some new training materials this week for "Safer Internet Day". To access these, click here.
Draft Scheme of Work
Not directly related to AUPs, but useful nevertheless is this draft scheme of work for teaching online research, communication and e-safety. Hopefully by keeping e-safety as a live curriculum issue will help keep acceptable use at the forefront of teacher's minds.
For all my collection of e-safety resources click here.