Searching the internet Safely

See also our rules for using the internet at school here.

There is no 100% way to search the internet in complete safety. Within school we use advanced and highly responsive filtering systems but even these can be caught out. At home the risks can be even greater and the use of parental controls, filtering systems and other restrictions is strongly advised. The main search engine of choice currently is Google. This does have a 'Safe Search' facility but this can easily be undone or bypassed. The two options below represent much safe alternatives and are recommended for children. There is no substitute however for clear expectations about what children should do if they come into contact with material that they are not happy with. There is also no substitute for close parental supervision and involvement.

At school, we are teaching the children to use Google as their main Search engine. This is in part because it is the choice of most people at home and in further phases of education.

Recommended Child Friendly Search engines

Yahooligans is designed specifically for children and returns carefully filtered and appropriate results. The number of results will always be much less than Google but they will be safe and generally much more relevant for children.

Like Yahooligans, this is an engine dedicated to the sorts of searches that children need to make. The results are again carefully filtered and appropriate. It also offers a slightly more 'intelligent' interface and allows children to type in their whole question rather than requiring them to choose key words. This may be easier but teaches them less about the process of efficient searching.