Age-appropriate internet filtering: how to balance protection with educational access

It's 10am on a Tuesday. A Year 11 history class is researching the Holocaust, but the filtering system is blocking legitimate educational sites. Meanwhile, a Year 7 pupil with SEND has become so fixated on one specific topic that they can’t concentrate on their other work. Sound familiar?

This scenario happens frequently in schools across the country. Increasingly, in mainstream schools trying to make suitable provision for SEND pupils or in special schools using online resources to provide engaging lessons for their learners, standard age-based content filtering fails the pupils who need protection most.

The designated safeguarding lead at a special school explained to us how they manage this potentially trickly scenario. What they said demonstrates that the right filtering system and processes will support learning while keeping everyone safe online.

Why age-based filtering isn’t always enough

Each year group will have learners at different developmental stages, academically and emotionally. Applying age-based filtering settings should be seen as a starting point. There will typically be individual learners who don’t fit a neat age-based category for filtering or monitoring.

We spoke to Danielle Doman, designated safeguarding lead at Sutton School, a special school that's adopted flexible filtering approaches. Her insights reveal how schools can move beyond a one-size-fits-all approach.

Specific vulnerabilities require personalised approaches. This is when systems with user-based filtering come into their own. Having identified learners with particular needs, the ability to edit default settings and apply them to a single user, or a group of users with similar needs, protects them in a personalised way.

Examples of circumstances when standard age-based filtering can be unsuitable:

• fixations
• developmental differences
• obsessive behaviours

When learners display behaviours related to fixations, standard content blocking can happen too late. The content they access may not be harmful in and of itself. However, the intense focus on a certain topic or area of interest can prevent a child from engaging with other tasks. In these cases, school leaders should make decisions about filtering and monitoring based on the individual vulnerabilities of the learner. Settings can change according to the subjects and topics on the curriculum at any given time.

From rigid rules to responsive protection

Meeting safeguarding obligations, such as Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSiE) and the DfE’s filtering and monitoring standards, requires multiple layers for different users. The structure of effective filtering has four levels:

• Default year group settings as the foundation
• Class-specific adjustments for curriculum topics
• Individual learner restrictions or permissions
• Staff access levels

Multi-layered filtering that can easily adapt to individual or group needs will deliver safe use of online resources for learners and staff. When content filtering supports rather than hinders learning, staff confidently incorporate online resources in their teaching.

At Sutton School, teachers can request temporary access for specific curriculum topics, knowing that it’s easy to remove permissions when no longer needed. Individual pupils get personalised restrictions based on their development and behaviour patterns.

Your IT team and teachers need to work together

Effective filtering requires partnership between a school’s IT support, teaching staff and senior leaders responsible for safeguarding.

Recognising the requirement to manage individual user or group settings according to need can become a burden rather than a benefit if the filtering system doesn’t allow those responsible to make changes quickly and easily.

Having a defined process for curriculum-based requests to increase access or needs-based requests to restrict it is critical to managing the needs of individual learners or groups. The DSL can judge the desirability of the request, and the school’s IT support will implement the decision.

A typical collaborative process for flexible filtering could include the following steps:

• Teachers request curriculum access as required
• Safeguarding team recommends individual restrictions
• IT implements with appropriate oversight
• Monitoring data informs ongoing adjustments

As with all safeguarding matters, staff need to know how to raise concerns and when to take the appropriate action. IT support should maintain filtering and monitoring systems, make changes according to agreed processes, and provide senior leaders with filtering and monitoring reports.

School leaders should consider implementing simple review mechanisms, so their filtering arrangements deliver what’s needed. These include:

• Regular safeguarding-IT meetings
• Simple request forms for teachers
• Automated alerts for concerning online behaviour
• Timetabled review of individual pupil settings

The unseen protection in the classroom

Well implemented filtering helps create an environment that encourages independent learning. Pupils can draw on online resources with appropriate guard rails. In turn, the system itself is invisible, trusted by staff to prevent harm.

Suggested next steps

• Ask the question: does your current filtering system support individual pupil needs?
• Actions:
  1. Audit your most vulnerable pupils' filtering needs
  2. Review collaboration processes between IT and safeguarding teams
  3. Consider whether your current system offers the flexibility your pupils need.