Bloxx Web Filtering Makes the Grade at Frederick Gough School

“We are delighted with the functionality and benefits derived from our Bloxx Web filtering appliance.”

Nigel Emerson, ICT Manager, Frederick Gough School

Background

Located in Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, Frederick Gough School has offered comprehensive education to 11-16 year olds since 1960. The school was designated a Specialist Language College in 2001 and offers a range of accredited courses in French, German, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Chinese and Italian to both students and adult learners.

‘Aiming High’ is the motto of the school where staff and pupils alike are encouraged to strive for excellence, to have high expectations of themselves and others.
The school promotes a positive relationship between people at the school and with the community at large. The philosophy is one of partnership based on respect for each other and adopted by its 100 staff and 1,200 pupils.

The Challenge

With a focus on excellence in education, the school fully embraces the contribution that the Internet delivers as an important education asset. To offer access to the Internet in a safe and controlled environment, the school’s ICT Manager Nigel Emerson realised that the school’s existing Web content filtering from Inty, a software as a service (SaaS) solution, wasn’t making the grade.

Emerson explains: “The Inty solution was really inflexible and could only deliver ‘all or nothing’ Web access. Specifically, the solution only offered a single filtering policy across the whole school. This inflexibility impacted our ability to tailor Internet access to specific user groups such as staff or by age of pupil and thus significantly impacted their ability to access appropriate and relevant Web content to meet their education needs.”

In addition Web site reclassification was both a cumbersome and a lengthy process. Emerson adds:

“When we detected sites that needed to be reclassified – sites that should be blocked and sites that should be allowed – we had to make a request to Inty for the reclassification to be done. The delay in reclassification was frustrating to our teachers and pupils and managing this process was time consuming for the IT team, time which we just didn’t have.”

The Solution

Having decided to deploy an in-house appliance, Frederick School approached CWL Systems, a Cambridgeshire-based IT security specialist, to help them find the ideal Web filtering solution.

“After evaluating the Bloxx solution against our key requirements, we purchased and installed the Bloxx appliance in early 2009. We now proactively monitor and manage Web content activity for around 1,300 users in real-time, offering superior protection and making life easier for all of us in the IT team,” comments Emerson.

The Results

The biggest benefit is in the school’s ability to determine, set up and provide user groups with differentiated Internet access based on staff or students, students’ year or students’ subjects. Emerson explains:

“Using the Bloxx appliance has enabled us to create and communicate a clear Acceptable Use Policy for Web surfing to staff and students alike. By introducing differentiated Internet access we now have so much more control and flexibility. We can now ensure that both staff and students have access to the Internet in a safe and controlled manner.”

“The Bloxx appliance automatically scans, classifies and filters Web pages using Tru-View Technology, the company’s real-time content categoriser, and offers real-time Web content reclassification. We can now permit access to blocked sites immediately upon request which with our previous solution would have taken minutes, hours or even days. Being able to offer this service is fantastic for our staff and students,” says Emerson.

“The appliance interface is simple and straightforward to use and now anyone in the IT team can easily manage and maintain our Web filtering capabilities and ensure that our AUP is enforced and any breaches clearly identified. The Bloxx appliance immediately sends me a notification via email if anyone is attempting to use the Web inappropriately so that I can take fast action to limit any impact on the individual and the school. And if I require further information I can instantly access lots of different types of reports and drill down to look at specific situations, users or web sites,” adds Emerson.

Emerson concludes, “We are delighted with the functionality and benefits derived from our Bloxx Web filtering appliance. Using Bloxx has made it possible to deliver flexible Internet access at the school and ensure a safe surfing environment that protects the staff and students from nasty or inappropriate Web content and viruses.”