Schools and educational establishments can integrate Securus software with complementary safeguarding recording solutions such as CPOMS and MyConcern plus teamSOS incident management system.
As members of IWF and UKCCIS, in addition to our Cyber Essentials accreditation, schools can also be assured that we adhere to the highest standards at all times.
Yes they do in order to meet their safeguarding obligations as laid down by the DfE and contained in their Statutory guidance for schools and colleges on safeguarding children, ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education. This also extends to the school duties contained in the Prevent Duty and also the safeguarding elements contained in the Ofsted and the ISI Inspection Frameworks.
Securus has been specifically developed to monitor devices and let you know exactly what is being viewed and how pupils and staff are communicating. Our solutions monitor both online and offline activity ensuring that potential incidents of risk do not go undetected.
In brief, the Securus software solutions monitors devices attached to your network against both our proprietary library of words and phrases and, if required, your own school customised library.
Should any online/offline activity in applications and browsers identify any violation against these libraries, a screenshot is created along with all identifying information, called a ‘capture’. This capture is sent to the Securus Cloud Console for review by your safeguarding team.
We would always suggest a whole school approach with clear lines of escalation for any matters of concern up to the senior leadership team and ultimately the head teacher or CEO in the case of a MAT.
However, as this is related to safeguarding we believe that the designated safeguarding lead (DSL) should be the first person to review the capture data and decide if there is any need to take further action.
There may well be more than one member of staff who reviews captures and, along with the DSL, make up the child protection and safeguarding team for the school.
OK, we understand that some schools might not have the staff to review captures, do not feel totally confident about reviewing captures or do not feel they have the time to properly manage the captures for themselves.
In these cases, Securus can offer you our Full Monitoring Service, Securus FMS, a fully managed option where the captures are monitored and the system administered by our team on behalf of your school.
Our team actively monitor, analyse and categorise all online activity the school generates and provides immediate alerts to the nominated contacts at the school (e.g. the DSL or Headteacher or both) should any capture meet the agreed criteria of potential risk or inappropriate online behaviour.
This approach to online safeguarding ensures that your school’s users are constantly monitored to ensure that the school is compliant with their statutory obligations and potential safeguarding risks are dealt with in an efficient and timely manner.
Competitively priced, please contact us for further details and to discuss the level of service required.
Yes it does. Non-Windows and non-Chromebook devices are monitored using our network level solution providing screenshot captures for anything that is identified against our library of keywords and phrases.
For schools who have a BYOD policy in place we can also monitor a range of devices including Smartphones.
Securus offers schools two monitoring options to safeguard pupils, based on your preference. DSLs and school leadership teams have the choice to review and manage capture data themselves or they can opt for a fully managed service where the Securus team monitor activity for you – reviewing, analysing and alerting you to incidents of concern.
Whether you self-manage the capture data or choose our fully managed service, both options utilise our Securus 360 software which includes our device-level agents for Windows & Chromebook devices with advanced monitoring functionality, capturing online, offline, typed and untyped activity.
Securus also monitors activity across many other devices including iPads, Mac, Android & mobile Devices using our network-level solution, delivering enhanced safety – and providing support for Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies.
Yes, by default the Securus console is cloud based, located in a UK cloud datacentre which is ISO27001 certified, the internationally recognised standard for Information Security Management.
We set each school up within the cloud environment and provide them with their login credentials to access their own specific console. The Securus console is where any captures are sent to for review and actioning by the school’s safeguarding team.
No. In line with statutory government guidance, schools are required to have ‘appropriate filtering AND monitoring’, not one or the other. Monitoring and filtering are complementary solutions and work extremely well side by side.
Monitoring is very much a proactive solution which covers internet website activity AND applications in use across your network whereas filtering is focused on blocking unwanted internet website activity and is therefore often referred to as a reactive solution.
Monitoring provides you with specific screen-based evidence showing you what is happening online across internet and application activity on your network. This intelligence can then be viewed alongside the information from your filtering solution to ensure you can see an overall view of the activity on your network.
Without monitoring in place, you may not be fully aware of what is happening on your network using applications such as Word, Teams, Outlook, Google and various chatrooms and therefore what new threats you might be facing.
Not entirely. Filtering is targeted at internet and website activity and does not cover network application activity. It will almost certainly be in place already and will be very helpful but it is only one component in the overall set of tools used to provide suitable safeguarding for your pupils.
Filtering solutions often do provide URLs and keyword capture data but often without the associated evidential screenshots. Securus provides highlighted screenshots, together with all the who, what, where and when information.
This allows safeguarding staff who review the data to quickly contextualise all captures and take any action that might be necessary.
No, Securus will happily work alongside your existing filtering solution.
Absolutely. In hierarchy terms we can set up the Securus console so the trust or the group will sit at the top of the hierarchy, with all its schools sitting beneath them individually or in whatever sub-grouping desired, e.g. North Group and South Group.
The trust/group will usually have a top-down view of all the schools in the group with each school or sub-group having their own individual rights to allocate reviewers, access rights, add custom libraries, etc.
Specific groups can be set up to reflect cross trust/group focus areas such as ‘High Risk Users’ with access rights assigned to specific members of staff.
Yes, Securus can create reports across a range of different criteria and our support team will assist and train schools how to utilise the reporting functionality.
Yes, you can configure alerts which meet a range of different criteria such as specific words or phrases or specific pupils or any combination of parameters.
As soon as the alert is triggered, email notifications are sent to a nominated recipient or any number of recipients when a capture has been generated against the specific criteria set up for the alert.
A simple 3 step process:
- We set up a Securus cloud console instance for your school in our cloud environment and provide login credentials to you.
- Subject to the products ordered you will be then sent the appropriate software to deploy onto the devices and your network.
- Once the software is deployed, the whole system is tested to ensure captures are being generated and received by the Securus console and the system is ready for live monitoring.
Absolutely. The Securus Annual Licence includes a range of training options and resources which are included and can be called upon at any time during the licence period.
- Training of key users, those that review and manage captures and administer the system provided online in easy to follow, short sessions.
- Support via the Securus Help Desk.
- Access to various training resources and videos on the Customer Support Portal.
Onsite training is available upon request at an additional cost.
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