Access to google, YouTube etc at school

[fruitcorner]

My DS (9) told me that after he had finished his work in ICT today, they were allowed to just play on the laptops. DS played games on Purplemash (?) and then googled 'big fat men' and then watched some sumo wrestling videos on YouTube. Is it usual that kids have access to Internet in this way at school? We had an incident last year that he and his friends searched an 'inappropriate' word on google during ICT that I only discovered when my DS told me - his teacher hadn't noticed. Am I being overprotective in being worried about this?

I'm sure the school will have some sort of internet protection in place, but I would ask what it is and make them demonstrate to me that it works.

I think it's quite usual but there are lots of filters on the computers.

Incidentally my ds loves purplemash. Today he made a database on it. It's an educational site schools subscribe to and at my dcs school they send the passwords home do they can go on at home.

We have had to sign an Internet use policy permission thingy.