Developing educational content

Where an organisation's website is developing online education content it is important that you refer to advice published by the National Grid for Learning.

• When planning web pages the content providers should be clear about whether they are likely to appear to a high proportion of children or young people.

• Consider carefully before linking from pages designed for children to pages where children are not the primary audience. Take special care when planning to link to external websites.

• Web managers should take steps to prevent any child from publishing their email address on your website or in a discussion group.

Web managers should also be aware of procedures that apply to the use of children’s photographs on websites. You should be especially sensitive in the case of children or young people with special educational needs. If:

• You could readily identify an individual child by sight,

• or if the child is named.

Then you should:

• Have written consent to the publication of the photographs, signed by the parent of legal guardian.

• The consent should clearly include the Internet - it would not be sufficient to simply re-use consent that applied to a conventional publication.

• Retain the signed consent form.