Need to find Internet provider for pre-school

[Helennn]

I have been asked to sort out an internet connection for pre-school, where I am the administrator. Apparently Ofsted are looking for this more and more and we have an inspection due any-day.

I have been looking at the Plusnet offer at the moment which works out at about £4 per month. Does any-body know the best way to protect it so older boys at the after school club can't google "big titty ladies" or the like? Or do I have to go with someone who provides this protection as part of the package as AOL used to advertise?

Sorry, don't know much about this at all, and the Plusnet offer runs out tomorrow, (Thursday).

Thanks as always

Usually this sort of thing is dealt with at the level of each computer rather than at the ISP level. ISPs are pretty reluctant to offer this sort of thing for a number of reasons.

AOL are a bad of an odd exception due to the way that they used to operate. They weren't a "proper" ISP as such but offered a kind of gateway onto the internet and they were traditionally quite protective over their own network and therefore the gateway to the wider internet.

However maybe there are some ISPs that do have an educational focus and might offer something. However even then there will be differences as to what people might allow different years to access so that's a tricky thing to manage.

Could you contact other schools and ask what they do?

I have just been looking at a website that supports ICT in early years settings.

My DS's nursery has just had an Ofstead report and they picked them up on their lack of ICT.

I was wondering how technology is meant to be integrated into nurseries - hence the search.

foundation.e2bn.org/

They have lots of ideas and also info on safeguarding the children etc.

Hope this helps.

Thank you both, as you can see I have no idea how this works!!

Bp when you say that this is dealt with at the level of each computer - errrr, how do you mean exactly? Is this a software package that needs to be bought or within the computer's existing settings? Do you think I will be OK to sign up for the Plusnet deal and then sort it out?

Tabouleh, thanks for that link. It looks very interesting and I will look this evening, after swimming .......

Yes there are software packages, or tools within some Operating Systems, that allow each computer to control what it can see on the internet.

With some slightly bigger networks that some places have individual PCs talk to the internet via another computer on their network and software can also be installed upon that central PC.

Either way it is usually something that's installed on the computers themselves and not something that the ISP often seems to provide.

That way it becomes the choice of the computer owners what they block and what they allow rather than leaving it up to the ISP who might make some very controversial choices.

As an example of what to install on a computer there's a package called Net Nanny that seems to be reasonably good.

I'm a few years away from having to worry about this problem on my computers so you'd be well advised to ask around here if you want some advice on particular filtering software.

Becta have some things to say on this matter and it might well be worth a look here:
schools.becta.org.uk/index.php?section=is&catcode=ss_to_es_pys_fc_03

Thank you both. Out of interest I asked in a computer shop today and they recommended Net nanny too. Am about to sign up to Plusnet so hopefully will be sorted soon.

thanks again!!