It is appropriate for people to be allowed a great deal of freedom in using ICT for study, work and leisure. With freedom comes responsibility. Plashet School cannot control what people, all over the world, make available on the Internet and a small proportion of the material which it is possible to access is not acceptable in school, while other material must be treated with great sensitivity and care.
Exactly the same standards apply to electronic material, as to material in any other form. If material is considered to be unacceptable by the school when presented in a book, magazine, video, audio tape or spoken form, then it is not acceptable on the ICT network.
See below for the standards that we expect ALL computer users at Plashet School to follow:
ICT Acceptable Use Policy For Staff
General Use of ICT
- Staff may make use of the school’s ICT facilities for personal use as long as this is kept to a minimum and does not interfere with your job. Any personal use may only take place outside of your core working time (defined as the time when you are teaching or in meetings) and must not prevent other staff from using facilities for work purposes.
- If you are making personal use of the school computers, the school is not liable for any losses you may suffer.
- Staff should not take any action that may make the school vulnerable to viruses. This includes not having up to date virus checking software at home (if using computers at home for any school related work).
- Any photographs containing students should never be stored on computers or media at home. Any photographs of school events should only be stored in the staff shared area of the network.
- Installation of any software, executable files or batch files is not permitted.
- Staff may not play recreational games.
- When printing documents which may contain personal or confidential information, they must be collected from the printer immediately. If the job fails to print but remains in the print queue, you must delete it yourself if possible, otherwise contact the network staff.
- Such documents should be stored securely and disposed of when no longer needed.
- Laptops, USB sticks and any other media containing school data should never be left unattended in a public place. Any loss or theft must be reported to the Network Manager or Deputy Head in charge of ICT as soon as possible.
- Take all steps necessary to maintain your own personal health and safety. These include adjusting chairs, monitors, keyboards and taking regular breaks.
- Ensure all software installed on school laptops used at home is properly licensed.
- All rights to access school data, networks and equipment cease when you are no longer an employee of the school.
Passwords and Access to Computers
- Passwords should never be given to any other person.
- Passwords should not be a person’s or object’s name or any other single word found in the dictionary. It is good practice to choose passwords that contain a mixture of uppercase and lowercase and have a symbol and a number in them.
- It is good practice to change passwords periodically.
- Passwords should not be written down where other users may find them.
- Do not leave your computer logged on and unlocked, whilst away from it for more than a few minutes.
- Students should not be permitted to use your computer account unsupervised.
- Students should not generally use the teacher computer in classrooms and never use it unsupervised.
Email and the Internet
- By using the school email, you accept that all communication is monitored.
- Do not use email for potentially defamatory or libellous purposes.
- Do not send any email that goes against any of the school policies or values.
- Staff may use email for personal use, if essential, but should keep this type of use to a minimum.
- Do not forward ‘chain’ emails.
- Staff may not enter into any commitment or subscription on behalf of the school without authorisation.
- The use of social networking sites is not permitted unless it is for professional purposes.
- Staff should not have students as contacts on any social networking sites.
- All ‘friendship’ requests from other colleagues must be treated with caution as there have been a number of cases of students pretending to be staff.
- If you use social networking at home please make use of the privacy settings to prevent students seeing your pages or profiles.
- Use of forums and blogs is permitted for educational use. Please do not make any remarks about colleagues or students. It is preferable for the school not to be identifiable through such communications.
- Bandwidth intensive activities (such as downloading films) are not permitted unless they are strictly for school business.
- Any communication with students and parents/carers will use approved communication systems (school email and stickies).
- Any accidental access to, or receipt of inappropriate material shall be reported to the Network Manager or Deputy Head in charge of ICT.
Supervising Students’ Use of ICT
- The Responsible Computer Users Agreement is displayed in all computer rooms. This document contains the guidelines for student use of ICT. Please ensure you are familiar with this document and help enforce the guidelines it contains.
- Student use of computers must always be supervised.
- When booking a computer room for your class, please ensure you have a contingency lesson plan in case the computers are down or unavailable.
- Be aware that students can sometimes minimise unauthorised use very quickly and may appear to be working when they are not.
- Please ensure all ICT rooms are kept locked when unoccupied.
ICT Acceptable Use Policy For Students
General Guidelines
- Do not enter a computer room unless accompanied by a member of staff.
- Do not eat or drink near the computers.
- Never run.
- Treat the computers with respect.
- Never touch the LCD monitor screens.
- If bringing disks/USB sticks from home, it is your responsibility to make sure they are virus free and in good condition.
- If you bring in work that has been done on a computer at home you should make sure that computer has up-to-date anti-virus software installed. This must be up-dated regularly.
- Never attempt to use someone else’s computer account.
- Always log-off when you have finished using the computers.
- Remember to leave the room tidy with all chairs tucked under the desks at the end of lessons.
- Never use bad language, either on-line or within documents.
- All of these guidelines apply in both clubs and lessons.
Rules for using the Internet
- The Internet may only be used for school work (you may be asked to produce the question, task or assignment that you are using the Internet for).
- The use of chat-rooms is not allowed unless it is part of a lesson.
- E-mail is never secure and private so be careful about what you say.
- E-mail may only be used for school related work.
- Remember that sometimes people on-line may not be who you think they are.
- Never give out any personal information such your phone number or address.
- Never arrange to meet someone you have contacted on-line.
- Never try to access inappropriate or offensive information.
- Report anything that you may be worried about to a teacher.
- Never send abusive or threatening messages to anyone as this will be treated as bullying.
Files and Printing
- You may only have school work files in your user area.
- MP3 files, video clips and photos that are not related to your school work must not be saved in your user area
- Programs brought in from home or downloaded from the Internet should not be stored in your user area.
- Avoid unnecessary printing – use print preview to check work for errors if possible.
- Never print pages directly from the Internet. Copy and Paste the part you want into Word first, then print from within Word.
- Colour printing is expensive, only print in colour with permission.
All responsible users should:
- Keep their user area tidy with all files organised in folders.
- Choose filenames that help identify the work.
- Delete old unwanted files from the network.
- Keep regular back-up copies of all important files such as coursework.
- Keep passwords secret.
- Choose passwords that are easy to remember but difficult for others to guess.
- Never let anyone else use their username and password.
You may not use the computers unless you have read and understood this agreement
Please be aware of the following:
- All computer activity is monitored. Reports including screen dumps are automatically produced.
- You are responsible for anything done within your computer account.
- By logging onto a computer in school, you are agreeing to follow the guidelines in this document.