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Blean Primary School
‘Learning together to enjoy and achieve’
Whitstable Road, Blean, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 9ED
Headteacher: Mrs Lynn Lawrence BA Ed (Hons), NPQH
Telephone: 01227 471254
Fax: 01227 787247
Email: office@blean.kent.sch.uk
Website: www.bleanprimary.org.uk
1st April 2015
To the Parents/Carers of children in Year 5
Dear Parents/Carers
As part of the new Computing curriculum, Year 5 children have to create and add to a class blog. We
will be doing this through the school Virtual Learning Environment which the children have been
introduced to by learning to use some of the resources available. This environment is a school based
community rather than in the wider internet community and is an ideal area for children to continue to
use technologies safely and with respect.
The requirement is to: “…understand computer networks including the internet; how they can provide
multiple services, such as the worldwide web; and the opportunities they offer for communication and
collaboration…”
In preparation for this way of collaborating and communicating, Year 5 has already made a simple
(unpublished) website, based on e-safety for children. They have also received e-safety training through
the Safer Internet Day as well as activities and talks carried out in class.
Our Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) is a safe way for the children to communicate; school staff can
moderate and check activity and there is also a built in system for children to report anything which
might be considered inappropriate. DB Primary, the provider, also has inbuilt filters to the system.
Many children do access forums and chatrooms with other child-friendly websites accessed at home but
these can be vulnerable to outside contacts whereas our VLE is a school based community.
Despite all of our e-safety training, children do sometimes make inappropriate comments to others and
access material not suitable for their age (although this tends to be at home rather than school because
of our filters to all of our systems). If children are found to be less than respectful in their
communication to others, there are sanctions which staff will carry out.
We hope that you have found this information useful and we look forward to reading some of the Year
5 blogs about ‘Endangered Animals’ which will fit in with our learning in English and our homework
project next term.
The Year 5 Team