Around fifteen thousand school staff have fully completed the OSA’s CPD-accredited course ‘Online Safety for school staff’ over the past two years. We are pleased to announce that the latest version of the course for the academic year 2021-22 has now been launched.
For details on accessing this popular course please visit https://www.onlinesafetyalliance.org/cpd-2020/
Course structure:
Section One: Introduction
- Module One: Introduction
- Statutory requirements, including Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE 2021);
- Procedures and policies for reporting safeguarding concerns;
- Summary of DFE guidance on online teaching;
- Summary of UK-GDPR responsibilities for school staff.
- Consideration of statutory requirements for Relationships Education (primary settings) and Relationships and Sex Education (secondary settings).
- Module Two: Nudes, pornography and sexual harassment
- DfE and Ofsted reviews and guidance;
- Legal aspects;
- Youth-produced sexual imagery;
- Impacts of online sexualised behaviours;
- Managing disclosures;
- Issues relating to pornography;
- Online sexual harassment.
- Module Three: Further online risks to children
- Social media management for pupils;
- Online bullying;
- Physical and mental health issues;
- Grooming including radicalisation;
- Live streaming;
- Digital footprint management.
- Module Four: Supporting children
- Educating pupils;
- Internal and external support channels.
- Module Five: Staff use of digital technologies
- Awareness of school policies and expectations;
- Staff management of personal social media accounts;
- Cybersecurity issues within schools;
- Managing communication with pupils and parents;
- Teacher Regulation Agency case studies of staff charged for inappropriate use of technology.
Key changes for the 2021-22 course
New module on ‘nudes, pornography and peer-to-peer sexual harassment
The national agenda within education turned very sharply to issues of sexual harassment and assault within schools and colleges towards the end of the academic year 2020-21. This new module covers the reasons for this focus and, drawing on a wide range of reports, reviews and guidance, ensures all school staff are aware of what the issues are and the role they can play to support children.
New module on cyber-security
During the academic year 2020-21, schools were warned about the growth of cyber attacks on the education sector. A number of schools across the country were unable to provide education to their pupils following successful cyber attacks last year. This new module ensures school staff have the knowledge and skills to play their part in keeping your establishment safe from this growing risk. This also covers new elements in KCSIE 2021 such as reference to reporting phishing attacks to the Anti-Phishing Working Group.
Full change log for 2021-22:
- Removal of older case studies throughout the course
- Formatting changes to aid legibility of content
- KCSIE – now four categories of online risk (commerce added)
- Updated reference to legal situation around UK-GDPR
- Updated instructions on the start of Relationships education
- New module within the course covering ‘Nudes, pornography and peer-on-peer sexual harassment’ in response to recent DFE and Ofsted guidance and reviews
- New module within the course covering ‘cyber-security issues’
- Updated information regarding Instagram privacy settings for young users
- Added details on new feature to reduce communication risks on Instagram
- Update on use of anonymous messaging apps through Snapchat
- Updated statistics on the usage of different social media platforms
- Updated statistics relating to online bullying
- Linked to most recent version of Ditch the Label’s anti-bullying survey
- Removed information on sexting and pornography from the ‘online risks to children’ section as now covered in more detail and with more up to date guidance in own section.
- Added link between lockdown and rise on online grooming
- Reference to latest NSPCC guidance on characteristics of children vulnerable to grooming
- Updated statistics on incidents of online child sex crimes
- Inclusion of IWF statistics on removal of child sexual abuse images, including analysis of risk by age and gender
- Information added regarding children being targeted for grooming by extremist groups
- Updated information and statistics relating to knife crime
- New section added regarding online activity of County Lines gangs
- Link added to further information regarding rise in sextortion over lockdown
- Updated case studies added to digital footprint section
- Misinformation examples updated
- Updates on DfE and KCSIE expectations regarding remote learning for 2021-22
- All new teacher misconduct case studies from the TRA in the ‘staff use of technologies’ section
- Changes made throughout end of module assessments to ensure they are matched to new and updated content