Online Safety
At St Bernadette Catholic Secondary School, we take the well being and safety of our students extremely seriously.
The internet and technology are constantly evolving, often at breackneck speeds. Educating our students to be able to stay safe when using apps, websites and devices forms an important part of our curriculum in all subjects, but especially in Computing and PSHE.
Supporting our students when things go wrong is an important part of our provision. Thankfully there are lots of resources available to parents and carers for them to be able to support their children too. Below you will find a list of websites which we recommend:
Think U Know (run by CEOP and the National Crime Agency)
GoCompare Parental Control Advise and Helper
Reporting an Incident
If you would like to report an Online Safety incident to the school or have a concern about your child's online use that you would like to discuss, you can do so by contacting your child's tutor or head of year in the usual way, or by emailing our dedicated address: esafety@stberns.bristol.sch.uk and someone will get back to you.
You can also use the 'Report a Safeguarding Concern' link available from the quick links menu on the homepage.
Report Harmful Content
The RHC button is an asset of South West Grid for Learning, a charity working internationally to ensure all benefit from technology, free from harm.
The button has been developed to offer anyone living in the UK a simple and convenient mechanism for gaining access to reporting routes for commonly used social networking sites, gaming platforms, apps and streaming services alongside trusted online safety advice, help and support.
It also provides access to an online mechanism for reporting online harm to the RHC service for those over the age of 13 where an initial report has been made to industry but no action has been taken. RHC will review content in line with a sites' community standards and act in a mediatory capacity where content goes against these.
Children under 13 years of age are encouraged to tell an adult that they trust about what has happened and to ask for their help in reporting this going through our how we can help resource together.
RHC also have advice and links to reporting routes for other online harms people may come across or face, such as impersonation, privacy violations and intimate image abuse.
The RHC button provides a gateway to the RHC reporting pages, an area of the RHC website offering:
- links to reporting routes on commonly used sites for 8 types of online harm
- help, advice and support on what to do if experiencing or witnessing harm online
- signposting to industry partners reporting forms and the ability to report legal but harmful content directly to RHC for further investigation
Reporting to RHC
Reports can be made 24/7 through the online reporting forms and helpline practitioners will review and respond to reports within 72 hours between 10am and 4pm Monday to Friday.
Reports can be made to RHC by anyone over the age of 13. SWGfL operates 3 helplines and to be sure you're getting the right support take a look at the Helpline flowchart to find out who can best support you.
