The safety of children and young people when they are online is probably one of the most important features of safeguarding.

Because the internet and social media can be used as a gateway for abuse, online safety is a concern for everyone, from parents to senior leadership teams.

No matter how well-trained teaching and support staff are, there is no foolproof way to monitor how the children in our care use the internet. These are a generation born into a world of smart technology and portable computing, who are as wilful and disinclined to listen to the adult voice of warning as any other generation.

If we want children to be safe when using the internet, we need to empower them to make good choices.

These are the first of our e-safety support videos intended to do just that by looking at individual aspects of online safety. The videos come in pairs. One video will support the knowledge and safeguarding policies for the teaching staff, support staff, and SLTs; the classroom support video will then pass the same message on to your students.

As a training provider, we know that as good as our training is, it has much more value if extends into the classroom as part of daily activity.

In the first videos, we look at the basic principles of how online safety fits into the overall safeguarding policy.