Are you happy about what your pupils get up to on your computer network? If you are, then at least be prepared to believe you’re being misled. Left to their own devices, children will abuse your trust in all sorts of ways – playing games, emailing each other with smut, requests for dates (not always couched in Jane Austen style), bullying messages. One multi-ethnic school, for example, found its students routinely using the word “Paki” in their internal messaging. You won’t easily catch children doing this, because, even if the teacher is in the room, they’re adept at concealing what’s happening.
It’s important to realise this isn’t just about proper ICT procedure. Children who misuse your computers are misbehaving in an area of the school – for that’s what your network is. If they did this anywhere else you would find it unacceptable, and it would be a matter for urgent attention. And, of course, if they’re misbehaving, they’re not doing their school work.
Part of the problem, says Bill Jenkins, founding director of Securus, the company that created the eponymous product designed to deal with ICT misbehaviour, is that schools often believe they are protected by their standard internet blocking and filtering systems. “It’s dangerous to think that,” he says. “The systems stop some things, but there’s a glaring gap.”
He knows this because the way he introduces schools to Securus is to put it in on free trial for two weeks to monitor what is happening. Invariably, he says, heads and teachers are shocked by what’s found.
Securus works by monitoring, unseen in the background, every PC, all the time, whatever application is in use. It looks for key words and phrases, and when it picks up something that’s defined by the school as unacceptable - whether on a web page, in a word processed document, or an email – it saves a screenshot labelled with details of the user, workstation, time and date. That way, the evidence is preserved, to be used in a discussion with the child, or, if necessary, with his or her parents.
User schools are enthusiastic. They find that Securus reduces email bullying as well as cutting down the sheer time-wasting that can go on when young people are on a computer network.
Mark Grundy, head at Shireland Language College in Sandwell says, “It’s impressive and easy to use. We’re one of a group of schools using Microsoft Learning Gateway, and there’s no way you could run it without something like Securus.”
There are management issues. One is to decide on levels of alert – where one incident might be noted and then discussed with the pupil later, another might call for instant intervention. Another decision for schools is whether to tell the pupils about Securus and what it will do, or keep it quiet until it starts to catch them. Grundy’s in no doubt about that one. “We did a Securus presentation to every cohort in the college,” he says.
Support from Securus includes remote updates to the library of unacceptable words and phrases – necessary given the rate at which adolescent usage changes.
