Schools in England are to get an official safety pack showing them how they can prevent children from accessing unsavoury material on the internet.

The Superhighway Safety pack also gives advice on children's health and safety when using computers.

It has been produced by the Department for Education and the British Educational and Communications Technology Agency, responsible for developing the National Grid for Learning, with help from the charity NCH Action for Children, the Parents Information Network, the British Educational Suppliers Association and Disney.

The pack includes information on software to filter out unsuitable material and has suggested good practice for parents, such as:

• putting the family computer in the living room so they can see what's on the screen
• monitoring children's online time and discussing the sites they visit
• learning to use the Net alongside their children and discussing the issues with them, encouraging children to assess the sites they visit
• setting out clear guidelines to children, such as never giving out your full name, address, phone number, or other personal information to people you chat with online, and remembering that people might not be who they say they are - so never agree to meet them in person.

John Carr of NCH Action for Children said a particularly worrying practice was 'chicken hawking' by paedophiles.

This involved lurking or hovering, hawk-like, in online chat rooms children might use, then when a child - the chicken - joined in, engaging them in conversation and trying to get them to move to a private chat area, with a view to teasing out personal details.

The Education Secretary, David Blunkett, said: "Schools are already employing a range of common sense approaches to safeguarding their pupils, from tracking pupil usage to providing limited internet access to sites which have already been previewed or choosing internet service providers who offer a 'walled garden' of pre-selected sites.

"We want to build on that. We cannot afford to be complacent.

"Our National Grid for Learning provides children with access to high quality educational resources within a safe area. All sites linked to the NGfL must not contain anything unsuitable or provide links to inappropriate material."

The government has also set up Gridwatch, which spells out the roles and responsibilities of teachers, parents and pupils. It provides a reporting mechanism for unsuitable material which the government says ensures an immediate response.

"We are encouraging suppliers to give schools the scope to create secure, local intranets," Mr Blunkett said.

"These can link school with school, keeping out anything inappropriate. Suppliers are also expected to offer adequate filtering of the material which can be accessed through their connections to the internet.

"By schools working together and sharing technical expertise, we can help smaller primary schools to offer protection which is more easily secured by larger schools."

• An online version of the pack is available in Adobe Acrobat format at the Virtual Teacher Centre for England.