How a North East Lincolnshire school is dealing with harmful online content

A school in North East Lincolnshire has revealed the efforts it makes to protect its students from harmful online content.

A Vodafone study to mark Safer Internet Day today (6 February) found six in 10 boys aged 11-14 have been exposed to harmful online content which either promotes misogyny or violence or makes them feel bad about themselves.

Oasis Academy Immingham principle Sara McLoughlin said: "We monitor new social media trends, accounts and sites. There have been some unfortunate trends encouraging children to do a dangerous act or something that's not suitable. If we hear about anything like that we contact parents."

One in five parents have noticed a change in their son uses to talk about women and girls, believing online content is behind the change, according to the Vodafone study of 1,000 parents and boys along with 10,000 teachers.

Sara McLoughlin said: "People have come up on social media and you look at them as role models you wouldn't want for our young people. We're aware there are influences out there, but we try to relate it to the people we love, so particularly for males we ask: 'how would you feel if that was your mother or your sister?'

"We don't want our young people looking at relationships online and thinking that's a healthy thing when sometimes the way they're portrayed isn't healthy. We talk about misogyny, we talk about consent, we talk about healthy relationships."

Oasis Academy Immingham is one of several schools across the country providing each student with an iPad to assist with learning. The school uses software to filter out potentially harmful or inappropriate keywords and sites, and aims to prevent "unscrupulous outsiders" from reaching pupils.

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