Recently Hampshire have released Flexible Filtering for schools meaning that it is now up to the schools to allow or block certain websites. This is a massive step forward and we have been enjoying this for a few weeks now. Now, despite many Hampshire teachers thinking to the contrary, I think Hampshire have actually been fairly lenient with blocking websites. When I talk to people on Twitter there are many websites where you can get diovan prescription online that are blocked across the country but have always been turned on for us. This new service means that the last few sites that we want to use are now there for us to switch on.
So which sites have I enabled? Twitter, Vimeo and err…that’s about it really!
It is worth noting that Google Images and YouTube were turned on because we have signed up to the filtering service.
Having Google Images, Flickr and YouTube have been fantastic for our children and staff and so far we have had no issues of children finding, or looking for, inappropriate content. I know not every school will have the same experience, but I feel we talk to our children in an open and honest way and they know I could block it again if I wanted or needed to so they don’t bother looking for this content.
Does your LA or school have the ability to allow/block content yet? I think this should be in place for every school but I also know we are very lucky to have it here in Hampshire!
Here’s how it looks.
Here is the category list. If you want to block auctions, just drag that category from one side to the other. The red ones can’t be allowed.
Here’s a list of websites we have turned on. Small isn’t it?
Simply type in the address that you want to allow. I tend to make them wildcards so *.twitter.com will allow anything.twitter.com just in case www.twitter.com doesn’t work.
Hi Ian,
Great post and really good to see you have the freedom of choice. I have had a number of years experience at an LA where we started to give schools choice about 3 years ago. Regrettably the vast majority of schools still “don’t want the responsibility” despite talking to them many times about the positives and the ease, yet they still complain that the LA filtering is too restrictive. They see it as “tecchy” and out of their area of knowledge. On the other side of the coin in secondary schools the responsibility usually falls to the network manager. I have seen some horrendous blocking because it makes the NM’s job easier, yet at the same time that same NM has pretty much all categories unblocked…..hmmmm!!! I’ve started to talk about filtering in my new blog if you would like to take a look:
http://esafetyadviser.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/filtering-part-1-esafety-or-just-blocking/
Hi,
Our school have just signed up to the Hampshire flexible filtering and we have been discussing having a policy in place to ensure teachers understand their responsibility. Do you have a policy for this?
Thanks,
Vicki
My policy is under ‘top posts’ on the top of my blog