Alford Academy Digital Learning Group

In an increasingly digital world, Alford Academy aims to prepare our young people as fully as possible for Digital Life and Work and Learning, in a safe and secure environment, while promoting the schools values of Honesty, Hard work, Ambition, Respect and Kindness as they apply to our digital lives.

Our work is based on our term of reference.  Our work in this area is overseen by the Digital Learning Group.  The groups membership is currently

• Chair: Struan Gardner DHT
• Staff Member – Euan Lawson PT PE& Health
• Staff Member – Vicki Shepherd Teacher of Maths
• Staff Member – Graham Scott PT Guidance
• Staff Member – Maureen Watt Supervisory Technician
• Staff Member – Robyn Lovelock Teacher of Biology
• Staff Member – Heather Czarnecki Teacher of Computing
• Parent Member – Vacancy
• Parent Member – Vacancy
• Pupil Member – Vacancy
• Pupil Member – Vacancy

The following measures are used by the Group to evaluate our effectiveness in meeting our aims.

• 360 Safe Scotland Audit tool
• Pupil Feedback
• Parental Feedback

All users of Alford Academy’s IT resources, (Hardware, Software, and Bandwidth) are expected to Agree to our Acceptable Usage Policy (AUP).  Details can be found here, along with a mechanism for confirming your acceptance of our AUP. There is an additional AUP and conditions for staff which can be found here.

We keep a log of online safety incidents which can be reviewed by staff and the Digital Learning Group in order to learn from these incidents and further improve the online safety of our school community.  Selected details of these can be found here.

Any member of our community is encouraged to report or flag up online safety concerns to the school (via the bullying and discrimination form, via the mental health concern form), to the service provider (i.e. SnapChat, Instagram etc) or to national agencies such as CEOP or Police Scotland as appropriate.

Learning about online safety gives vital skills and knowledge for life in the modern world.  Brief details of what we do to support this learning can be found here

Our policies and practices in relation to online safety should be read in conjunction with the following key documents:

• The School’s Values
• Anti Bullying Policy
• Data protection
• Copyright
• Aberdeenshire Council’s Mandatory Code of Practice: Passwords
• Web Filtering and Firewalls
• Mobile Devices
• Digital content including and video
• The Use of Personal Devices on Campus
• Pupil use of council owned devices off campus.
• The use of Social Media by the school

 

Updates:

11 January 2021
Latest Online Safety information from Police Scotland