Nature Screen safeguarding policy

Intent

We all have a duty to safeguard children (under 18) and adults at risk of harm, abuse or exploitation. As an educational producer that has worked with schools for the BBC, OECD, British Council and many others for over 25 years, Cornucopia has a culture and ethos that places this duty at the centre of what we do.

In addition, Cornucopia is a full member of the British Education Suppliers Association (BESA) and follows their Code of Practice. This covers Safeguarding and Data Security, Financial and Operational Stability, and Integrity, Quality and Transparency. BESA also offers a formal complaints procedure that schools can follow if members do not adhere to this code.

This policy should be read in conjunction with the following policies and frameworks:

Keeping Children Safe in Education (2026)

GDPR and the Data Protection Act (2018)

CONTENT

1.Ownership

The Screens on Nature Screen are all produced and owned by Cornucopia and are not sourced from any other organisation or individual. We do not include YouTube videos anywhere on the Nature Screen platform. The three Growth Mindset animated films were produced for the BBC by Cornucopia and are streamed from our own platform with English subtitles. This ensures full control over safeguarding within the Classroom pages. The Teachers pages provide a link to the Growth Mindset series on BBC Teach should teachers wish to explore the resources further.

All content undergoes a strict quality control process and only features natural scenes, generally without people. One or two exceptions show people who are not identifiable, who may be at a distance or pass through the frame to provide a sense of scale for the viewer (for example Windy Seaside or Remote Fur Tor). We also include some screens filmed in an urban context where natural features are predominant and the sights and sounds of a city are part and parcel of the experience (for example Battersea Power Station). These exceptions only occur where a compelling editorial rationale exists. The content is flagged for teachers in the guidance notes accompanying the screens on the Teachers membership pages (some guidance for recent additions is still in preparation at the time this policy was reviewed).

2.Age Appropriateness

The content (including text – see below) is aimed at primary school children and those in Early Years or Nursery settings. The Classroom pages have been tested and reported by teachers to be user friendly for primary age children. The Nature Team characters were created by Cornucopia for a BBC series and comply with their editorial guidelines for age appropriateness, diversity and inclusion. All screens that feature animals are clearly identified as such and no harm has been done to any animal during the process of filming. There are no images of wild animals that include scenes of hunting or mating behaviours that might be frightening or inappropriate for children. Farm animals such as sheep are only shown in the contexts of sustainable environments where animal welfare is very high and the animals are clearly well looked after.

3.Compliance - video

The moving images are filmed using cameras that do not move, pan or zoom during recording. The video is locked off, and all changes are the natural changes in light due to shifts in sunlight and weather over a long period – many screens last more than an hour. At no point are special effects used, banners or captions overlaid (there is no spoken dialogue or audio cues on the screens that require subtitles for accessibility), and any natural flickering of the light is controlled in post-production and screened for flashing, following Ofcom guidance on Photosensitive Epilepsy (PSE).

4.Compliance – Audio

There are no sound effects, music or commentary in the audio. Audio is recorded in the location where the filming is done, generally in exact sync with the pictures, to provide a natural soundscape, without extraneous noise. Variations in the sounds of wind, water, trees, birds and other animals is consistent with the video content and creates a multi-sensory experience of the natural world. If human sounds off camera intrude during recording – we film in the UK in real locations where people may be in the vicinity – they are removed in post-production. No intelligible human speech or audible human sound is allowed to disturb the calming natural soundscape. The very rare exception is when the sound of people, including children, coincides with their appearance in vision and is editorially justified as a characteristic of the scene (for example in Windy Seaside).

Immersive audio is provided by recording using Ambisonic equipment and post producing in Binaural audio for use with headphones. Sound pressure levels and perceived loudness is controlled to match the proximity of the sources in the image, without exceeding levels consistent with the natural setting, and consistent with broadcast standards.

5.Neurodivergent Learners

Further guidance for teachers is given on specific screens for use in Settle and Calm routines with classes or individual children. Teachers are advised to refer to these and preview screens before use if their children are particularly vulnerable to sensory changes, for example in sound level caused by wind or rain (see Fellside Wood in March), or to specific triggers, for example the sound of bees (see Bees and Lavender). Screens that are the most consistent in terms of sound are identified and recommended for use with such children and will engender the desired calming effect without undue risk of dysregulation. Some screens with more dynamic sound are now being reviewed and re-versioned to suit neurodivergent learners. This will add to the range of environments and nature settings teachers can choose from.

6.Text

Text descriptions and stories on the Classroom membership pages that accompany the screens have not been authored by Artificial Intelligence. They are written by the creators of the audio-visual content and reflect the experiences of being in the natural locations. Stories are age appropriate while also being rich in terms of descriptive language and subject matter. They provide teachers with many opportunities to extend learning and explore children’s ideas and responses to the natural world presented on Nature Screen. Additional material on the Teachers membership pages is intended for professional support and offers references and external links that help develop a school approach to adopting Nature Screen. None of this additional material has been authored by Artificial Intelligence.

All text content is original and copyright Cornucopia Productions Ltd. It may be used by schools and teachers in conjunction with the Nature Screen resources but not otherwise reproduced or distributed without prior permission.

CONTACT

There are no sharing opportunities or external links for children to follow on the Classroom pages. No user generated content is shared or featured. There are no comments on the site. There are no interactive features on the Classroom pages.

No information about children is collected (see Privacy Notice and Cookie Policy for details).

The video player is provided by Vimeo but there is no branding, sharing or other people’s videos; screens return to the start when they end; most screens can only be played on the Nature Screen site.

CONDUCT

The Nature Screen website has been designed to ensure data privacy and security as well as to safeguard children. The site is not publicly available except for example screens on the landing page and the screens and resources are only available via secure log in. Accounts are created by teachers and the school, not children. Two separate account types are supported, the first is the professional Teachers membership, and the second is called Classroom. It is recommended that Classroom membership is created using a school email address and secure password. Teachers memberships are generally created by individual teachers with their own email addresses. Both are provided to schools free-of-charge during the continuing development of the Nature Screen platform.

Teachers can either choose and run screens for the children from their own membership or set up the Classroom membership view. The Classroom pages are restricted and do not have a footer or header, containing site information. Once an adult has logged into the Classroom membership, children can be given access to the Classroom pages while at school and independently browse, select and view screens. Children can see the account but without the password they cannot do anything other than access content.

Although it is not a requirement of membership to agree to email communications, the option is provided for those teachers interested in keeping up to date with content and the platform and schools willing to participate in our research. Privacy and security in that case is dealt with separately depending on the level of participation.

To enable access to Nature Screen on school IWBs, laptops and tablets, the following addresses will need to be allowed through the school firewalls and secure web gateways by the IT department:

Squarespace Website

The site is built and hosted on Squarespace. SSL certification is active.

https://naturescreen.org

The following should also be added to a school filtering list as they are loaded from the Squarespace site:

static1.squarespace.com

images.squarespace-cdn.com

assets.squarespace.com

use.typekit.net

p.typekit.net

ajax.googleapis.com

Vimeo player

Player & API Domains: player.vimeo.com, vimeo.com

Content Delivery Networks (CDNs): *.vimeocdn.com, *.akamaized.net, *.cloudfront.net

TCP / UDP Ports 80 and 443 (HTTP and HTTPS/QUIC traffic)

COMMERCE

There is no advertising on the Nature Screen website and no product or company identifiers are in any of the screens. The site and content is not sponsored. No screen has been paid for by a third party.

Cornucopia Productions Ltd is the owner and operator of the Nature Screen site and all content is copyright. The company is a full member of the British Educational Suppliers Association and complies with the BESA Code of Conduct. The memberships are free for schools and teachers during the development phase. It is intended to offer those who sign up for this phase an extended free account when the site becomes a paid for subscription service at some time in the future.