Safeguarding Policy

This policy is intended to be read by adults over 18. Children should check with a parent, guardian or teacher before using this website.

Sky Class is committed to making a website which puts the best interests and safety of children first.

This policy intends to set out the measures we will put in place to achieve this. We will do everything in our power to create this safe environment and put checks and balances in place, but Sky Class does not condone and will not be held directly responsible for the actions of malicious users or criminals, online or offline.

1. Sky Class will fully co-operate with law enforcement or educational authorities who have a mandate to safeguard children. This includes sharing information with them where that is relevant to their vital work. This is also stated in our Privacy Policy which you agree to when using the site. It will also implement any recommendations from these bodies as far as is reasonably possible.
2. Sky Class will not collect, or allow to be stored, any contact information for children which would allow Sky Class or users to contact that child privately. Children are welcome to ask an appropriate adult to send us messages on their behalf.
3. Sky Class will validate that users who sign up as teachers have access to the work email addresses they provide by asking them to click a link within an email. School admins will be responsible for checking that these addresses belong to genuine staff members at this school e.g. if appropriate, they may check the email’s suffix like“.sch.uk”.
4. It is possible for teachers to upload resources to Sky Class such as spelling lists. These must be free of language which can reasonably be deemed to include swear words or language which discriminates against race, class, gender, sexuality or age in any way. While we cannot actively moderate all teacher-uploaded content, we will remove any content we deem to have broken our Terms of Use. Please contact us to report any content you suspect may be causing harm. We are not directly responsible for any content uploaded by users.
5. Sky Class does not at the moment allow in-app messaging, or for student accounts to upload or share data, images or content. If and when this changes, our safeguarding measures will be strengthened accordingly. In summary- it will be impossible for messages between users to be private- and instead all messages and content will be visible to all staff members and parents connected with a school. At the same time, teachers will always have full control over whether content is made public outside of that school community, by default it will not be.
6. It is the responsibility of teachers to apply their school’s anti-bullying and behaviour policy- for online and offline student behaviour during school hours. Parents share this responsibility when Sky Class is being used as a homework resource outside of school hours. In order to assist parents and teachers with this, we refer you to point 4, where we will not allow private messaging between students without adults in the same school being able to access these and confront bullying.
7. If you have any concerns that a school is being represented by somebody who is not connected with the school, or that one of our users is abusing our Terms of Use, or causing harm to a child in any way, please contact us. We will collect the evidence we have at our disposal and pass on any relevant information or concerns to the school’s Designated Safeguarding Lead.

Further Information

For more information about keeping children safe online, including resources which can be shared with children, there are several organisations who can help:

• https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/online-safety
• https://www.saferinternet.org.uk/