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How Perins MAT is keeping students safe online and teaching them to become good digital citizens

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1,200

students staying safe on school-issued laptops even when they go home

3

IT Staff (and an Apprentice) enjoying simplified filter management

1

Chief Information Officer sharing his filter successes with others

Challenge

Challenge

A web filter that keeps students safe on school laptops when they leave school premises

The Perins MAT is a small but growing multi-academy trust serving families in Hampshire, UK. Providing a rounded and rich education to its 1,200 secondary school students (ages 11-16) and 200 junior school students (ages 7-11), the academy is known for its strong reputation in both PE and Performing Arts.

The Perins MAT also has a one-to-one laptop scheme in its secondary school, so it must support 1,200 students and their devices. This includes keeping students safe online, whether they're at school or at home.

While the academy had a web filter in place, that solution wasn't able to extend protection to student devices when off the local network. It also provided limited controls and inadequate reporting capabilities.

The academy was looking for a flexible and robust school web filter that would keep its students safe, whether at school or not.

Solution

Solution

Cloud-based school web filtering—that also provides granular control and robust reporting—keeps students safe online, even at home

Chief Information Officer, Phil Segal, began exploring web filtering solutions to address the academy's requirements. In his review of product literature, he happened upon Securly Filter. He hadn't heard of it previously, but he was impressed by its innovative features and competitive pricing.

Securly Filter not only offered the off-site filtering that the MAT needed, but it also provided granular control to establish policies for different times of day and different groups of users. To give it a closer look, Phil started with a trial. He got Securly Filter up and running alongside their existing filter and was immediately pleased with the results.

Phil explains, "The setup and deployment of Securly Filter was much easier than other products. The implementation of the solution is really simple, especially when you've got a lot of devices.

We were able to push out the client to all of the machines, and the users just appeared in the console."

He highlights that Securly Filter has a lot less complexity on the front end than other filters and has a very easy-to-use interface. He and his small team appreciate the ability to customise policies and streamline the management of things like unblock requests.

Phil also mentions Filter's reporting capabilities and its YouTube filtering policies as big advantages. In his words, "Traditionally, filtering YouTube has been a nightmare, so Filter's capabilities are a definite plus. Pulling reports, which can be very difficult in other filters, is also very simple."

Outcomes

Outcomes

"The ability to show students where they may be making the wrong choices and help them to make the right ones is critical."

While Phil points out a number of Filter features that are helpful to him and his team, the real value of Securly Filter is that it keeps Perin MAT's students safe online.

He shares, "What I really like is that Securly will email us when it spots content of concern. So whether it sees concerning search phrases, or finds pages that have been visited but aren't yet classified, or spots nude images being moved across the network, it will email and tell us who it is and what they're doing. Then we can look into that straight away. From a safeguarding point of view, that's really good."

Phil admits that students get frustrated when the web filter blocks them from social media, for example. However, he's quick to add that with the frustration also comes empowerment because filtering teaches students how to become good digital citizens.

He explains, “The filter helps students understand the responsibilities of being safe online because they can see it happening. The ability to show students where they may be making the wrong choices and help them to make the right ones is critical. Securly Filter definitely supports us in that."

By partnering with Securly for cloud-based web filtering, Perins MAT can:

  • Keep students safe on school laptops, even when they go home
  • Quickly look into concerning online behaviors
  • Streamline web filter management
  • Easily run reports to understand students' online activity
  • Teach students to be responsible digital citizens

Phil is so satisfied with Securly Filter that he signed a multi-year contract. In addition, he has added another product, Dyknow Classroom, to his Securly contract. Dyknow Classroom is classroom management software for Windows devices. It gives Perin MAT's teachers visibility and control of student laptops so they can minimise digital distractions during class and keep students engaged in learning.

Phil and his team also happily share their experiences with peers and colleagues. “There are two major points that we've passed on to other people," he says. “First is that deployment of Securly Filter is nice and simple. Second is that Securly's customer service is really good. That's so important, you know. It's no good having a great product if you can't get it supported. And the Securly support team have been really helpful."

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Ensure student safety on any school-issued device, anywhere it goes.

With Securly Filter, you gain the flexibility and ease of use to keep your students safe and out of harm's way, regardless of location or device. Plus, you'll have your own industry-leading customer support team at the ready.

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