Shoeburyness High School
Policy Patrol helps Shoeburyness High School
ensure acceptable use of their email system by
blocking spam, monitoring students' emails, alerting
staff to potential problems and automatically
restricting the email privileges of re-offenders.
Company background
Shoeburyness High school is a large secondary
school located in Essex which currently has around
1500 pupils aged between 11- 18 and 156 teaching
staff. The school is a member of the Southend
Excellence Cluster which has access to a wider
variety of services, resources and expertise benefiting
staff, pupils and parents.
The school encourages pupils to take pride in
themselves, their work and the school as a whole.
This is achieved through the creation of a positive
environment in which good achievement, effort
and behaviour are rewarded and pupils are given
the opportunity to explore and achieve their potential.
Whilst Shoeburyness High school is committed
to achieving a high level of academic success,
the school also places great importance in the
social and emotional wellbeing of students in
order to provide the best learning environment.
The school has a zero tolerance attitude towards
bullying and disruptive behaviour. As head teacher
Mrs S.J.Murphy B.Ed says:“In Shoeburyness
High School there is no place for those who seek
to disrupt education or who try to make it difficult
for others”.
The challenge
Some years ago, the school started providing each
pupil with an email account to allow them to communicate
with other students and staff. However, it was
important to the school to ensure acceptable use
of the system in the same way as the school ensures
acceptable behaviour in the classroom.
In practice this was proving to be a difficult
task: some students were being exposed to inappropriate
spam mails, and others were sending emails with
offensive language or unsuitable attachments to
other students. The school realized that they
needed to find a way to control their students'
email use. Kirk Sheehan, Director of Learning
Technologies at Shoeburyness High School, took
on the task to look for a product that could automatically
detect and block emails with inappropriate words.
Solution
After searching the Internet for a suitable product,
Kirk discovered Policy Patrol. The school had
never used anything like this before and the school
board was therefore keen to see the benefits.
Kirk downloaded a trial version from the Red Earth
Software website and was very impressed with its
varied functions and multiple benefits. Kirk says:
“We actually found that Policy Patrol could
do much more than we originally thought, not only
filtering out inappropriate words, but also automatically
notifying staff and warning & restricting
abusers. This meant that Policy Patrol considerably
reduced the amount of time needed to administer
and monitor our student's accounts”.
Word filtering & automatic restriction
Kirk configured Policy Patrol to detect unacceptable
language in their students' emails and automatically
ban subsequent breaches of policy. Kirk: “Policy
Patrol sends an email notification to the student
and the year manager when unacceptable words are
found in a message. Policy Patrol then places
the student on a warned list and informs them
that upon a subsequent breach, their email privileges
will be restricted. If an email from a student
on the warned list is found to have unacceptable
language, Policy Patrol will place the student
on a banned list and block all messages from the
student apart from emails to and from school staff.
The great thing is that all this is automated
and does not require any input from the ICT staff.”
Attachment filtering
Policy Patrol prevents students from emailing
certain attachments such as MP3 games and videos,
avoiding distractions and possibly unapproved
content.
Anti spam
Policy Patrol's intelligent spam filters prevent
spam messages from ending up in students' and
staff's mailboxes, saving much needed time for
school staff and saving unsuspecting students
from offensive and sometimes even dangerous content.
Notifications
The school uses the Policy Patrol notification
system to inform students if they have breached
the email policies by using unacceptable language,
and informs year managers of the detected abuse.
Policy Patrol also informs staff when students'
emails contain words that indicate potential social
or emotional problems.
Benefits
Enforce Acceptable Language
By recognising banned words and phrases Policy
Patrol allows the school to take control of their
email system and enforce acceptable language.
Restrict Abusers
Policy Patrol can warn and automatically restrict
a student's email use without requiring any manual
administration effort. This system also means
that pupils not abusing the system retain the
privileges associated with good behaviour. Overall
this ensures that students remain focused and
school staff are able to focus their attention
on teaching.
Reduce Distractions
By blocking emails with banned attachments, Policy
Patrol prevents the circulation of MP3 games and
video attachments. This is very beneficial as
games can not only distract the student using
them but also others around them causing a significant
barrier to learning. This saves a vast amount
of time in lessons and eliminates confrontations
between students and staff.
Early Warning System
Policy Patrol acts as an early warning system
for the school, alerting staff to areas of concern
amongst pupils, such as drug abuse, bullying,
underage pregnancy/sexual activity, self harm
and vandalism. All of the students know that the
system is looking for keywords and phrases so
they do not feel that their privacy is in any
way being violated. Policy Patrol allows staff
to follow an email thread and act upon it if deemed
necessary in order to get the whole story.
Shield from Spam & phishing
As adults most of us are aware of just how annoying
and offensive spam mail is. Sometimes students
are not aware of this or may even find entertainment
within the contents of spam mail which is usually
highly unsuitable. The Policy Patrol spam filters
ensure that such mail can be rejected before it
finds its way into the student's mail boxes saving
time and exposure to inappropriate materials.
Bottom line
Policy Patrol has allowed Shoeburyness High School
to regain control over their email system. Policy
Patrol also helps staff by alerting them to potential
emotional and social problems that students might
be facing. The school was so impressed with Policy
Patrol that their Head Teacher discussed Policy
Patrol at a meeting with other Head Teachers of
Southend. Kirk was subsequently asked to talk
about all aspects of computer security whereupon
Policy Patrol was highlighted as the one application
that solved a series of age old problems within
schools.
Kirk: “Policy Patrol is much more than
just a word filter, it is an email control system.
It saves the ICT Support Team a huge amount of
work and informs pastoral staff of serious emotional
and physical student issues. If a student is hurting
and wants to tell someone but is too afraid, this
product does it for them. In some cases the responsibility
of what another student has confided in them can
also be a great source of stress and worry. As
a school we have a duty of care for our students.
Policy Patrol has alerted us at an early stage
to problems that could have gone unnoticed or
taken longer to discover. It has enabled us to
intervene and ensure students receive appropriate
help and advice at a very early stage. All of
this is a bonus to what we actually purchased
the product for in the first place!”
Product: Policy Patrol Enterprise unlimited users
OS: Windows 2003
Server: Exchange Server 2003
Implementation: 1 day
Shoeburyness
High School |
