Our leadership team at school is currently investigating subscribing to an online platform, Linewize, that manages, monitors, and protects student online activities at school, and with parental approval, at home.

While our current network platform has similar functions, Linewize is a far superior product in its functions and allows both school and parents/caregivers to work collaboratively insuring the safety of our young people on the internet:

Some of its key features include for schools are:

• It allows non-technical staff to easily manage filtering, alerts and guest access. Teachers can now instantly allocate and alter access to a range of online programmes and apps that only focus on the learning programmes, which can also be differentiated for various learners and groups. While this is possible under our current platform, it’s not easy for staff to manage, and thus allowing a much wider access to the internet, often leading to students going down rabbit holes.

• It’s fully integrated with Google programmes. Teachers can now share, differentiate and monitor their learning programmes much easier through this platform.

• Easily create, generate and schedule tailored reports for pastoral care and administrators.

However, the real value sits in its added platform, known as “Family Zone”. The Family Zone Parental Control is a free platform available to parents/caregivers “to set firm boundaries around what their children can access online - and when they can access it - while allowing the flexibility that modern family life demands”, with features such as:

• Manage Screentime - Set routines for when kids can access their device and internet

• Safe content - Removes adult content for safe searching

• Restrict social media - Control access to social media apps and websites

• Restrict YouTube content - Limit YouTube to safe content or block it altogether

• Limit in-app purchases - Restrict app downloads and in-app purchases

• Limit gaming - Manage access to mobile games and gaming apps

• Disable device features - Disable various device features like the camera or screen capture

• Family Zone can be applied to 2 devices - a student computer and a mobile phone to protect every device, everywhere

• Reports & alerts - Parents receive reports and alerts for each child and device

• While parameters can be set up to keep all children safe at home too, parents get their own network with unfiltered access.

More information about the Linewize and Family Zone platforms will be sent out asap.