Some groups of children are potentially more vulnerable and more at risk than others when using ICT. These can include children with emotional or behavioural difficulties, learning difficulties, and other complex needs, as well as those whose English is an additional language, and looked after children.

As with all children, pupils with Special Educational Needs (SEN) can use the internet in educational, creative, empowering and fun ways. Some of our pupils may be particularly vulnerable to e-safety risks.

For example:

• Children and young people with Autistic Spectrum Disorder may make literal interpretations of content, which will affect how they respond.
• Some children may not understand much of the terminology due to language delays or disorders.
• Some children with complex needs do not understand the concept of friendship, and therefore trust everyone implicitly. They do not know how to make judgements about what is safe information to share. This leads to confusion about why you should not trust others on the internet.
• There is also growing concern around cyberbullying. We need to remember that some children with SEN or disabilities may be vulnerable to being bullied through the internet, or not recognise that they are being bullied.
• In addition, some children may not appreciate how their own online behaviour may be seen by someone else as bullying.

Pupils at Lime Academy Hornbeam receive regular lessons, assemblies and visitors who teach them how to stay safe when on line. The links on the right hand side of this page are to help you if you are ever worried about what you experience online.

Parents can often find this worrying, so we have some key tips to help you:

• Explore the online world together
• Talk to your child about staying safe on line#
• Manage the software and tools your family use
• Agree rules about what’s OK and what’s not.

If you or anyone you know is worried about Child Exploitation, Online Protection or anything related to Internet safety please click on the link  below to the CEOP reporting website. The  CEOP is a law enforcement agency and is here to keep children and young people safe from exploitation and abuse. Please click on the links on the right side of this page to start your report to one of CEOP’s Child Protection Advisors and to view tips for staying safe online.