8:37am Tuesday 24th November 2009
By David Roberts
INTERNET safety should be on the curriculum of every school in Darlington by Christmas.
Following the death of Ashleigh Hall, 17, on October 26, after she met a man on the internet, councillors in her hometown have recommended nine safety measures which they hope will be implemented across the borough.
Last night, at a special meeting of Darlington’s children and young people scrutiny committee, councillors looked at a report into different ways that children could be kept safe using the web.
Their findings will be passed to the council’s cabinet and the committee hopes that the recommendations will become policy.
The body of 17-year-old Ashleigh, from Warwick Square, was discovered in a field near Sedgefield, County Durham, last month.
She had gone missing after going to meet a man she met on a social networking site.
Following her death, The Northern Echo launched a campaign to make teaching internet safety a mandatory part of the school curriculum.
At an earlier meeting, the scrutiny committee discovered there is no specific advice about internet safety in the national curriculum and schools have to rely on information from other sources.
A task group was set up and its recommendations include: ● E-safety to be part of the school curriculum in Darlington; ● Every child to be made aware of a person in their school to whom they can report inappropriate behaviour; ● E-safety pop-ups to appear every time someone logs on to a public computer in town; ● A special committee to be set up to look at e-safety work.
There are also plans for parent workshops and a Safer Internet Day to coincide with European E-Safety day on February 10.
John Steel, head of Darlington’s Learning Technologies Team, told the committee work was already well under way on an e-safety curriculum.
■ Peter Chapman, 32, of no fixed address, will appear before Teesside Crown Court in January after being charged with kidnap, manslaughter and failing to notify of a change of address as required by the Sex Offences Act.
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