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At St Matthew's School, we recognise that keeping children safe online is one of our most important responsibilities. The digital world is constantly evolving, bringing both exciting opportunities for learning and new challenges that we must navigate together as a school community.

The changing landscape of online safety

Technology now plays a central role in children's lives, both at school and at home. While this brings tremendous benefits for education and communication, it also means that the risks children face are continuously changing. One of the most significant recent developments is the rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Generative AI takes a written prompt and runs it through an algorithm to generate new, 'natural'-seeming content – i.e. that seems like it was created by a person, not a computer. While AI can be valuable, it can also be a source of incorrect, biased or inappropriate information – often to carry out scams, phishing, etc. This means children need our support to understand how to use these tools safely and critically evaluate the content they encounter.

Our commitment to you

We are committed to working in partnership with parents, carers, staff and pupils to create a safe online environment where children can learn, explore and develop the skills they need to navigate the digital world confidently and safely. This means:

• Teaching children how to recognise and respond to online risks. Online safety is taught to each year group as part of the Computing Curriculum and revisited during the year when the children are using the internet.
• Maintaining robust systems to filter and monitor online activity on school devices. We work closely with Eduthing, an external provider, that makes sure our systems work and remain relevant and fit for purpose.
• Keeping our approach up to date. As technology and risks evolve, we develop the curriculum to meet the challenges. We also make sure that all staff are fully aware of current trends and pitfalls. 
• Working with you to reinforce online safety messages at home. Every week we will send home relevant information about what you can do to keep children safe at home. Below is a link to the information we have sent so far this year. We also hold parent training to tie in with Safer Internet Day in February.

Useful links

https://www.internetmatters.org/

https://www.childnet.com/parents-and-carers/

https://saferinternet.org.uk/guide-and-resource/parents-and-carers

https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/online-safety/