The E-Safety Steering Group in Highland is pushing ahead to take things forward in an integrated approach. One of our moves is to try to ensure that Highland Council sites incorporate the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) ‘report abuse’ widget. We’ve now started the ball rolling by embedding the links in our Highland Youth Voice website
In order to do this, an agreement document between the authority and CEOP has to be signed and they do request a screen shot to add to their own files. The process isn’t complicated and it can help authorities to safeguard children and young people. Any authority can contact the education team at CEOP to request the details.
We will push forward to ensure that schools in Highland who have their own websites and blogs are encouraged to incorporate a link to the Think You Know site, so pupils, parents and staff can access information on how to be safer in the online world. This is just one facet of the work that’s developing, if you want to know more please contact Jim or me.
After a brief spell in Glasgow Royal Infirmary for eating some rather suspect salad (trust me to choose the unhealthy healthy option) I’m pleased to be back! Before my little (ahem) accident, I was priviledged to attend an event in Perth for all the authorities in Scotland trialling the eagerly anticipated Curriculum for Excellence Health and Wellbeing Outcomes.
Highland amongst 5 other LAs will be trialling the Es and Os in 10 schools, a mixture of Primary and Secondary schools working either across an ASG or independently. I must say here that everyone working in all Highland school communities are being encouraged to engage with the outcomes in order to provide valuable feedback to LTS. So I guess what we have developing is 4 different levels of consultation / engagement.
Official trialling schools using specific trialling questionnaires
Unofficial trialling schools using generic questionnaires
A Highland strategic response from our Highland integrated childrens services
All professionals individually being encouraged to provide feedback via the LTS online feedback
I was bowled over at Teachmeet (Northern Edition) by the encouraging excellent use of a wiki to support collaborative learning by students studying Shakespeare’s Midsummer Nights Dream. I’ve now created a wiki using wikispaces to start the ball rolling for collating up to date information for the official trialling schools. There is an LTS online trialling community site set up, which is going to be really useful to see how things are developing across Scotland, but having our own Highland one to collaborate in the first instance as we start this journey is a good step. Please feel free to view as it develops
I’m really keen to hear from others how they have encouraged colleagues to use their wikis as I guess it will be new to some folk, how do you encourage others to become acquainted with all these new and wonderful ways of working?. Please do let me know your thoughts! I think a good little clip to explain how they work is the one developed by Commoncraft.
Louise Jones is the Health & Wellbeing Subject Supporter for The Highland Council, Education Culture and Sport Service and NHS Highland, Department of Public Health.
