As schools prepare to close there are a lot of safeguarding issues that are going to need careful consideration.

After all students will be told that they cannot get together in large groups - no parties, football matches or cinema trips - and it will mean students will be sitting at home alone communicating a lot more online than ever before.

Coronavirus: Your complete planning guide for school closures

Read more: 8 tips from closed international schools

Online lessons: 11 tips for using Google Classroom

In fact, we will be encouraging them to use technology more, with teachers busy planning online lessons as we speak. This will mean even more opportunities for students to access harmful information, be groomed by someone or get involved in online bullying.

To that end, schools need to  - among all the other considerations - spend some time thinking about safeguarding issues that will arise and how they can be adequately addressed.

Safeguarding issues if coronavirus shuts schools
 

1. E-safety policies

Before students disappear we need to remind them of the school e-safety policy. Call an emergency assembly or give your tutors clear guidance to talk through on the rules, the expectations and what school will actually do about it if students transgress these rules.

A student may not have looked at these rules in months although the recent Safer Internet Day should have helped to jog a few of their memories. Does your school policy mention children at home during school hours? Most will state that they will take e-safety concerns very seriously.

Some may even state that “on receiving a report of cyber bullying either in or outside of school, the school will...xxxx” - but is that really what happens?  

2. Parental involvement

Communication with the parents is also key, reminding the parents to keep an eye on their filters and talk to their children about what they are looking at or who they are talking to, especially as isolation isn’t good for anyone’s mental health. 

There is a great online helpdesk community that parents can access which can give guidance about a variety of issues. Websites such as this can be helpful and I will be encouraging parents to read up as much as possible.

3. Sexting concerns 

Approximately 220 cases of sexting or youth-produced sexual images  involving under-14s were investigated by the police last year, which must mean that teachers and schools have helped students with a lot more cases.  

Given that young people will be at home, potentially unsupervised for many more hours in the day, we have to be aware of this issue.

On a side note, I am also slightly concerned that some students may send me images that they have seen as they have often tried to show me images on their phone. These concerns need to be shared as a safeguarding team.

4. Online bullying

Apparently last year 43 per cent of students were bullied online. This is bound to increase if schools close and everyone is isolated. But how can we sort out these issues when a student isn’t even in school?

Normally if a child brings an online bullying issue into school we have to investigate as stated by the Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance, with government policy stating: “All forms of bullying (including cyberbullying) should be handled as a community issue for the whole school.”

But under these circumstances, how can this be done? Will you be bouncing back concerns to parents? Do your parents know this and have they the expertise to deal with it? After all, anyone who has ever investigated an online bullying issue knows it isn’t as simple as just looking at one screenshot, or even one social media platform.

Do the students know how they report their concerns remotely? Is this different to how they would normally make a referral? The safeguarding team need a clear strategy of how they investigate and how much they can feasibly do. 

And what can the actual consequences be? Virtual detentions? This is the key point that schools need to consider. How can this really be enforced? Will schools have to follow it up, once students return?

I cannot see a clear direction, especially if schools will be closed for a long period of time, but thinking about safeguarding now may at least mean it does not get forgotten in the chaos of everything else. 

Directing parents to sites like Our Helplines or pupils to Childline may be a way that schools can support, but as with a lot of issues at the moment, we can only wait and see how schools and children will cope with the isolation.

Ceri Stokes is assistant head (DSL) at Kimbolton School in Cambridgeshire. She tweets @CeriStokes