Welcome
Hello! Welcome back to a new term, we hope you all had a good summer. In this term's newsletter we cover a range of different topics including; our latest e-Safety report from e-Safety consultant Alan Mackenzie, BT's new scheme to improve community connectivity, the introduction of our new Colocation product, and much more!
'Sexting' In Schools - Keeping Children Safe
Article by Alan Mackenzie
You may remember in the last newsletter we introduced our new partnership with e-Safety consultant Alan Mackenzie.
In his new article, Alan discusses the growing issue of 'sexting' in schools and colleges and how the new, standardised (non statutory) guidance released by KCCIS (UK council for Child Internet Safety) has highlighted this.
It is now a widely discussed topic which more people should be made aware of, and with the increase in media coverage pointing the finger at schools, the feeling is schools should be educated as to how to deal with it.
For more information, click on the link above to read Alan Mackenzie's full article.
New Statutory Guidance for School Web Filtering
The revised Keeping Children Safe in Education document came into force on the 5th of September 2016. This guidance includes the specific actions schools are required to take in order to make sure they are compliant with the new statutory guidance.
The Schools Broadband Lightspeed System Web Filter is compliant, however it may be that your individual school's filter requires updates. Please contact our Customer Technical Support team on 01133 222 333 option 1, and we will confirm if you or your technical support team are required to make on-site updates.
The UK Safer Internet Centre's Appropriate Filtering and Monitoring self-assessment forms have been produced to help schools assess the compliance of their filtering providers. Once your updates have been made, you will be fully compliant. Click here for our completed forms.
BT Plans to Improve Community Connectivity
BT Openreach are now providing grants of up to £20,000 towards the cost of new local fibre networks to better serve rural communities.
Their existing partnership scheme offers gap funding for rural and less digitalised zones, covering any costs which may rise above BT’s own commercial model for the area. The new grant scheme however is only available to eligible communities where the new fibre network would be accessible to their community’s school.
The scheme is being funded by the operator’s Purposeful Business unit within BT Group, who are highly supportive of inspiring young people and believe that technology plays an important role in their lives.
Their goal is to reach 5 million school children by 2020, in the hope that the introduction of these grants will provide schools with the high speed connectivity they need to aid their learning.
New Look For Schools Broadband
As part of our new Schools Broadband branding we have introduced some fun and exciting characters.
The purpose of each of the different characters is to represent the various services we offer, while emphasising the fact that although our business is a technology one, ultimately we are here to protect our children.
You may have seen the characters revealed on social media recently. We love them and we hope you do too!
Raising Awareness of CAH
Our very own Tom Wadsworth will be speaking at a charity event at Climb’s Transition and Adult Care Conference to share his experiences of living with CAH -Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia. CAH is a group of inherited conditions that are present at birth (congenital) where the adrenal gland is larger than usual (hyperplasia).
Climb is the leading patient organisation for Inherited Metabolic Diseases supporting 1000s of patients worldwide. With over 700 Inherited Metabolic Diseases their aim is to raise awareness and provide bespoke support to families, patients and professionals.
Good luck Tom!
When: Saturday 8th October 2016
Time: 10am - 4pm
Where: The Studio, Birmingham
New Co-location Product
Ideal for Multi Academy Trusts needing to share resources across their WAN, (Wide Area Network) or for large schools looking to scale back their on-site server infrastructure, our Colocation service at Optimum’s data centre in West London, offers high security, climate controlled, managed hardware storage.
Also relevant for schools looking to improve their disaster recovery plans, or for those who need to take advantage of increased bandwidth at lower cost, or even to use as a stepping stone to a full cloud solution, Colocation is the recommended route.
For more information make sure you read through our full service description and data overview or call 01133 222 333 to talk to us.
Keep Your Contact Details Updated!
If you have had staff changes or have updated your school's contact details, please make sure you drop us an email to let us know! We need up-to-date emails for the following contact roles: Finance, Bursar, Business Manager, Network Manager/Co-ordinator and Head Teacher. We sometimes need to communicate very important information to specific departments. Thank you in advance.
Have a good term and look out for our next Connected newsletter in Spring!
