E-Safety
The internet is truly amazing. Children can play, learn, create and connect - opening up a whole world of exciting possibilities. But with the digital world changing all the time, it can be hard to know how can you make sure your child is staying safe.
At Our Lady of Muswell Primary School we believe that educating our children about being safe on-line is very important. As part of our Computing curriculum all children from Foundation Stage to Year Six follow our online Safety Scheme of Work focusing on identifying some of the risks about being on-line and how to keep themselves safe. As, and when, an issue may arise, that is then used as a teaching point.
Digital leaders
The school has recently signed up to the Childnet Digital Leaders Programme! The programme will offer pupils structured training and ongoing support from Childnet’s expert team so that they can go on to educate their peers, parents and teachers about staying safe online. The young people will be supported through the programme by Miss Carter and the school staff and they will have access to our exciting online platform, where they can share advice with young people from across the UK. Young people will also have amazing opportunities to share their views with leading internet companies like Facebook and Twitter, and they will have a say in creating a better internet for the future.
As a Digital Leader, they will…
- Deliver education sessions for young people in their school or community.
- Raise awareness online about internet safety, for example a blog or a school social networking site.
- Raise awareness offline by using the space around them to help promote messages about the safe and positive use of technology. This could be done through leaflet creation, or creating a display of internet safety posters and leaflets.
- Educate the wider community by reaching out to other groups in your community such as school staff, youth workers, parents or carers.
- Carry out research in order to find out more about young people’s use of technology.
- Be an expert in their community by giving advice and support about a range of issues.
- Influencing how their school and organisation helps ensure young people are using technology kindly, respectfully, creatively and responsibly
- Run a campaign to address a key issue and change things for the better.
- Create an educational resource about internet safety.
- Inspire the creative and positive use of technology by doing something in their school or community to help ensure that young people are using technology in a creative and positive way.
Support for Parents
We have been particularly impressed by the work of the NSPCC and O2 in supporting parents and schools keep children safe when they're using the internet, social networks, apps, games and more.
An extremely informative and engaging workshop was held for parents and carers here at OLM in the Spring Term.
They also have some excellent tools and advice on their website which will help you keep your child safe.
https://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/keeping-children-safe/online-safety/
CEOP
A key resource, which was shared with children and parents on the day, was CEOP.
The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) helps children stay safe online. CEOP says ,'We are here to help and give you advice, and you can make a report directly to us if something has happened online which has made you feel unsafe, scared or worried. This might be from someone you know in real life, or someone you have only ever met online. We take all reports seriously and we will do everything we can to keep you safe.'
The website link below tells you when to make a report, how and what will happen when you do:
https://www.ceop.police.uk/safety-centre/
Search Engines
Child friendly web browsers will help filter out Adult content. No safe search tools are 100% foolproof so it is important to talk to your child in the event of them experiencing inappropriate material.
www.kids-search.com
www.swiggle.org.uk
YouTube
It is possible to setup Youtube to filter out adult content by using the settings in this guide:
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/174084?hl=en-GB
You also can try using https://www.youtube.com/yt/kids/
app as another means to help protect viewing.
A number of parents have informed us that the online gaming section has been particulary helpful
Some excellent advice regarding Youtube can also be found :-
https://www.net-aware.org.uk/networks/youtube/
http://www.kidsmart.org.uk/parents/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/topics/stay-safe
https://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/parents/
www.ceop.police.uk
www.thinkuknow.co.uk
www.internetmatters.org
www.parentzone.org.uk
www.parentinfo.org
www.saferinternet.org.uk
www.net-aware.org.uk
https://www.childline.org.uk
https://www.iwf.org.uk
- POSH - Professional Online Safety Helpline: helpline@saferinternet.org / 0844 381 4772
- Zipit app: https://www.childline.org.uk/info-advice/bullying-abuse-safety/online-mobile-safety/sexting/zipit-app/
Parent Info
This is a website which is mentioned a lot on twitter as being a good hub of current and up to date articles: