In this podcast, our guest is Dan Kingsley, the UK Channel Manager for NetSupport, one of the leading IT companies specialising in remote and classroom management. We discuss KCSIE filtering and monitoring and how NetSupport’s Classroom Cloud maintains a safe learning environment in schools.
The DfE’s Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) is a set of statutory requirements and guidance that UK schools must follow. Schools now require robust e-safety management that complies with KCSIE parts 1 to 5.
Classroom Cloud monitoring is Classroom365’s recommended safeguarding software, complying with the latest standards for filtering and monitoring in schools. Dan gives us insights into how Classroom Cloud is becoming the most trusted classroom management tool thousands of schools use worldwide.
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Transcript
Keeping Children Safe in Education by Filtering and Monitoring Internet Content
Hello and welcome to today’s Classroom365 podcast with your host, Pritesh. Don’t forget to hit the subscribe and like buttons so you don’t miss out on all our future episodes. We’re here to talk about all things IT and life in the education sector. A hot topic at the moment is KCSIE, or Keeping Children Safe in Education.
Today, we’ll be joined by Dan Kingsley from NetSupport. We’ll discuss their product, Classroom Cloud, which helps keep schools compliant and safeguards children.
Introduction
PRITESH: Hi, everyone; this is our podcast with Dan Kingsley from Classroom Cloud, NetSupport. It will centre around KCSIE guidelines and Classroom Cloud, which we’ve worked on with Dan for almost a year.
DAN: It probably is about a year now.
PRITESH: Yeah, it’s very popular. It wasn’t one of the first products we looked at, but then Dan approached one of our schools. When I helped roll it out, I understood we were missing out on something here because of its simplicity and everything it covers. So, Dan, how long have you been with Classroom Cloud, and how did this product come about?
DAN: I’ve been with NetSupport for about six years. I’m our UK channel manager. So, I’ve been working with schools and companies like yours that support schools with common requirements in classroom technology.
Some areas we focus on are classroom management, supporting teachers in their lessons, the KCSIE guidance with our safeguarding monitoring tools, and a range of techie tools so we can help technicians support their end users around the school.
PRITESH: That’s fantastic. With KCSIE filtering and monitoring, one of the main focus points at the moment is KCSIE guidelines and the updates to the 2023 version. Still, many schools would do well to follow them because they cover how important safeguarding and monitoring children is in schools.
One of the things that schools get confused about is the difference between web filtering and their firewall. Of course, products like Classroom Cloud, which you do to safeguard children with sensitive issues where children could be looking at things on the internet, a cry for help almost, the schools can then capture that. It’s not necessarily about Big Brother and snooping all the time. Often, it’s preventative and looks after the children and their well-being.
DAN: Agreed.
KCSIE Internet Filtering and Guidelines
PRITESH: Dan, what can people expect from the Classroom Cloud monitoring software? What are the main differences or the added value you get with Classroom Cloud instead of just having your basic firewall and filtering in place?
DAN: You’re absolutely right. Going back over the last few years with the KCSIE guidance, your internet filter has generally been the tick in the box where, you know, we’re compliant and monitoring activity on the internet at the school.
As things have progressed, we can all appreciate the kids; they can do a lot with technology, not necessarily on a web browser. That’s where the monitoring side of it has become emphasised now. There are a lot of devices around schools, and kids can do many things not in a web browser, and that’s where our keyword technology comes into play.
It’s given schools extended security on their devices for what students discuss or look at. It may be in chat messages or emails; some areas are still sensitive and need to be monitored.
You raised a good point about students needing support. One of the excellent features of Classroom Cloud is our reporting. Schools can allow their students to have a desktop shortcut, and those students can reach out directly to the DSLs or the head teacher, whoever it might be, as a support person and raise their issue or what they’re concerned about.
PRITESH: You know what, Dan, that’s great. And another thing, I was talking to one of our schools who had a demo with you, and obviously, I’ve got children myself, and schools these days are very diverse places. My children have friends who come from all over the world. My daughter’s really into music, so she’s now into multicultural music and listens to songs from Romania and places like that.
So, and just on that subject, in schools, children are clever so that they can search for things in their language. I know you recently had an experience with one of our schools where we set up a demo, and I’ll let you explain because it’s pretty interesting.
DAN: Yeah, the keyword aspect is an excellent point to discuss. We set up a demo with one of the schools that you guys support. Unfortunately, despite having 20 supported languages, we didn’t have support for Norwegian keywords.
We already have a diverse keyword library and work with international customers and charities on online safety. But yeah, Norwegian was one that we had yet to encounter. We were very happy to engage with the school and develop this language pack with them.
That shows that we’re willing to expand what we can do, which is constantly improving our keyword library. For context, for those watching and listening, we have over 20,000 keywords developed over many years and updated continuously. You can also add your own keywords for select topics and niches.
We’re delighted with its scope, and that continues to improve. Hopefully, anybody out there listening will also have a Norwegian language soon.
PRITESH: That’s one of the things we like about Classroom Cloud. By getting feedback from schools, we can promote the product, which we can get behind. One of the things that we like is the ability to tailor keywords. As you said, there are 20 language packs, which few other providers can offer. The ability to tailor the keywords and some competitors have a fixed set of keywords or a whitelist, which you can’t easily change.
It’s restrictive because the landscape is constantly evolving. New words are always used, and children are always learning new things.
DAN: That’s a great point to mention. Our keyword library is also available for our customers to see and manage the severity priority levels of each word. This is positive because we’re crystal clear about what we are and aren’t monitoring.
And as a school, if you work with an alternative product out there where you can’t see the keywords they’re monitoring for, there’s a level of trust and faith that they are monitoring for the right words.
I’m not a Designated Safeguarding Leader (DSL), but if I were, I’d like to be sure that the words I expect to be monitored are being monitored, and that’s something nice that we do. Adjusting those keywords would make it impossible for us to produce a default template that meets every school’s requirements.
Every school is different, and everyone has their preferences around safeguarding. So, our customisation in Classroom Cloud allows it to be tailored to your school. The long-term benefit is that you’ve got a safeguarding tool that works for you. You don’t have to adapt the way you work to the tool necessarily; the tool can adapt to you.
KCSIE 2024 Filtering and Monitoring in Schools
PRITESH: I like how this is going because everything leads to the next topic I was about to discuss. The next topic I was about to mention was that this podcast is also about filtering and monitoring in KCSIE.
Like Classroom Cloud, the KCSIE guidelines do put a lot of onus on the DSLs and schools to be proactive. One issue is that school staff, DSLs, or headteachers are incredibly busy. So, they constantly don’t have time to learn things, especially difficult ones. There are lots of elements to it. There’s section 2.3, blah, blah, blah.
What I like about Classroom Cloud and how it relates to the DSLs and the schools being proactive is that there is loads of training material. Once we’ve signed them up, we create an account, and there are so many videos and resources. And it doesn’t bombard people because it enables the DSLs and the schools to be proactive. If they ever had to say, right, show me, give me an example – how would you look up whether Johnny’s done X, Y, and Z? It’s so easy for them to go in themselves and pull out that report.
DAN: Agreed, and you got it on two hands as well. The product is cloud-based, so it’s accessible from anywhere. You can go into the portal and filter your results by different categories, where they have been produced, and with various user groups. You’ve probably seen the excellent smart search tool where you can search for a student name, a website, or a keyword anywhere, and it’s right at your fingertips.
But then, on the other hand, we can step away from relying on always looking at the console and be proactive about it. We’ve got email alerts for the high-severity stuff that you need to be aware of immediately. Then, you can also do the scheduled KCSIE internet filtering reports, and we can do these reports daily, weekly, or even monthly.
This means that the schools won’t necessarily have to look at it 24/7. They can be prompted daily or weekly to see a breakdown of that period and pull out the key information they need. It just helps to streamline the process and keep things simple.
PRITESH: Excellent. From a setup perspective, it is straightforward because, unlike some other products, we don’t have to sync it to MIS software or Office 365 or import all the kids in. I can do that if I want to, but I don’t have to. I’ve just got to get a demo with you, create a login, and everything’s there.
DAN: I’ve done it myself, and this is the simplest way. That’s how things started with us, wasn’t it? You’re having a bit of a headache with your on-premise tool, and seeing Classroom Cloud was almost like a breath of fresh air for you.
PRITESH: It went from taking three weeks to set up to doing it in an afternoon. In part of that setup, you can create your remote management group while doing it. So, it uses the same client that you push out. You don’t have to push out a separate client. You create your remote management groups and can exclude people from certain groups or elements if you don’t want someone to be monitored.
It’s as simple as when users log in, they’re excluded. It’s not installed onto a computer or a device; it’s the user. And that’s the other great thing about Classroom Cloud: it captures who logs in.
DAN: Another part to mention is the whole module around classroom management for teachers. Sometimes, it can be overlooked, but it synergises with safeguarding monitoring because it’s an excellent tool for teachers to have more visibility and control over their lessons. That’s always very useful in delivering better lesson content.
But the other side of that is that there are concerns with safeguarding sometimes, which is, how much data will I have to look at? Is there a lot to report on? What’s the context here? Having a classroom management tool where teachers are constantly monitoring and viewing the lesson and the ability to restrict access to resources in their lesson, like website access.
If teachers actively use these tools, they support the DSLs by seeing things there and when they happen. If you restrict access to inappropriate websites, you’ll naturally get less safeguarding data anyway.
It’s also an excellent deterrent. Students will quickly figure out that they’re being watched in all their activities. While I’m sure that won’t faze some out there, many students will be deterred from doing anything inappropriate in their lessons. This, in turn, supports the safeguarding team.
Classroom Cloud Support
PRITESH: Brilliant. We’ve given a pretty good overview of how Classroom Cloud monitoring ties in with KCSIE guidelines and some key elements. I want to touch on one last thing. Whenever I go somewhere to buy something or purchase something, the salespeople always give a glowing review of what I’m about to buy, telling me everything’s great.
Then, I’ll find out afterwards that when I’ve got a problem, the salesperson is no longer interested in me, and with tech support, I have to wait 20 minutes, and there are no other supporting materials that I can look up to try and fix it myself. I don’t have that issue with Classroom Cloud.
How big is your support team? We can always reach them whenever we want. It’s like someone’s always there when the phone rings.
DAN: They’re a very well-oiled machine here, and we pride ourselves on it as our existing customer base. And generally, that’s why many of our customers stay and renew their software for many years.
The team is always happy to lend a hand, which speaks volumes to our ethos. We’ve been around for 36 years as a company, and retaining a positive brand and customer feedback is crucial to our success. You can see our case studies and success library on our website.
Generally, in the community, we’re very engaged with schools and people in the sector. There are a lot of people who will say and vouch for us on how well we support our customers.
PRITESH: Cool. Well, I certainly can. Dan, thank you very much for your time today. I really appreciate it. This isn’t just a podcast. This is very important for everyone to realise because of school safeguarding. There are a lot of products and advice out there. For us, as an MSP and IT partner for schools, schools must get the correct products and solutions that provide them with the desired results.
DAN: Agreed. I appreciate you having me. This was great. And hopefully, we can do another one in the future.
PRITESH: Amazing. Thanks, Dan. Take care. Thank you. Bye now. Take care, everyone.
Outro
Thank you, everyone, for listening. Please like and subscribe. We’ll be back with more Classroom365 IT podcasts. See you next time.