School Online Safety Governance Policy

This policy is intended for use by a primary or secondary maintained school or academy in England. Where a school adopts this policy, it should be read with the school's current safeguarding and child-protection arrangements, behaviour policy, bullying policy and other relevant local procedures.

Purpose and scope

The purpose of this policy is to support a whole-school approach to online safety and online harms. Online-safety principles should be reflected in school culture, ethos, environment, and partnerships with families and the community, rather than being treated as a matter for lessons alone.

This policy covers online-safety expectations and governance across teaching and learning, safeguarding and child protection, behaviour, bullying, use of school networks and facilities, and use of pupil devices at school. It also describes how the school communicates expectations and receives and escalates concerns.

Local arrangements and responsibilities

The school should identify the person or role responsible for coordinating this policy as [online safety lead role] and the person or role responsible for safeguarding and child-protection escalation as [safeguarding lead role]. Their responsibilities should be consistent with the school's current safeguarding and child-protection arrangements.

The school should identify the route for reporting an online-safety incident or concern as [online safety reporting route] and the route for urgent safeguarding or child-protection escalation as [urgent safeguarding escalation route]. These routes should be clear to staff, pupils and parents.

Local procedures may set additional responsibilities or escalation arrangements. Where they do, those arrangements should be preserved and followed.

Online safety within school policies and practice

The school should reflect online-safety principles in its policies and practice where appropriate. Its child-protection policy should include clear processes for reporting online-safety incidents or concerns, and its behaviour and bullying policies should address relevant online behaviours.

This policy should be cross-referenced from the school's current safeguarding and child-protection arrangements at [safeguarding policy reference], from its behaviour policy at [behaviour policy reference], and from its bullying policy at [bullying policy reference].

Whole-school approach

Online-safety teaching should be supported by the wider life of the school. The school should consider how its culture, ethos, environment, and partnerships with families and the community reinforce online-safety learning and help pupils understand online harms.

The school's approach should be described in [whole school online safety arrangement], which should be read alongside the relevant safeguarding, child-protection, behaviour and bullying arrangements.

Expectations for staff

Staff should communicate and model the school's online-safety principles in the settings in which pupils are online at school. These settings may include lessons, the library, the playground, school networks, school facilities and use of a pupil's own device at school.

Staff should use the school's reporting and escalation routes when a pupil reports unacceptable online behaviour, including cyberbullying, or shares a concern about something seen online. Responses should follow the school's current safeguarding, child-protection, behaviour and bullying procedures.

Expectations for pupils

Pupils are expected to follow the school's online behaviour standards whenever they are online at school, including when using school networks or facilities and when using their own device at school.

Pupils should report unacceptable online behaviour, including cyberbullying, and concerns about material or activity they have seen online through [pupil reporting route]. A pupil who makes a report or shares a concern should be directed to the school's established safeguarding, child-protection, behaviour or bullying procedure, as appropriate.

Expectations for parents

The school should communicate its online-safety principles and reporting arrangements to parents. It should support parents to apply the same principles of online safety at home.

Parents should use [parent reporting route] to raise an online-safety concern involving a pupil or the school community. Information for parents should explain how concerns are received and when they may be escalated through the school's safeguarding or child-protection arrangements.

Reporting and escalation

The school should maintain a clear process for reporting online-safety incidents or concerns. The process should identify how a report is received, who considers it, which existing school procedure applies, and when it is passed to [safeguarding escalation role].

Reports of unacceptable online behaviour, including cyberbullying, and concerns about something seen online should receive appropriate and consistent action under the school's applicable procedures. The school should record and manage reports in accordance with [local recording and case management arrangement].

Communication

The school should communicate this policy and its relevant online-safety expectations to staff, pupils and parents through [school communication arrangement]. Communication should explain the applicable reporting routes and how online-safety principles connect with safeguarding, child protection, behaviour and bullying arrangements.

Review and local maintenance

The school should maintain this policy alongside its current safeguarding and child-protection arrangements and review it in accordance with [policy review arrangement]. The review should consider whether the policy continues to reflect the school's reporting routes, escalation arrangements, behaviour and bullying arrangements, whole-school approach, and communications with staff, pupils and parents.

The person or role responsible for coordinating the review should be [policy review owner role].