Children at St Cuthbert’s use the Internet on a regular basis as part of their learning. In school, we have regular ‘e-safety’ activities to remind children of the importance of keeping themselves safe online.
At home, sometimes children can be given unsupervised access to the Internet. This, potentially, allows them to access all kinds of society (both good and bad) and bring them virtually into their homes.
The internet and other digital technologies such as smartphones open up new learning and social opportunities for everyone. However, we need to ensure that children and young people are able to use the internet and related technologies appropriately and safely. Everyone has a shared responsibility to support this: school staff, parents – and children themselves. This responsibility is about teaching children appropriate behaviours and applying careful thinking skills, to enable them to remain both safe and legal when using the internet. Research shows that many young people lack an appreciation of online dangers and of the consequences of their actions. The safety of children including e-safety is an essential priority.
Our school website contains a range of guidance weblinks that we believe will support parents to keep their children more safe online. We look for and add new information from time to time. Here is one of these from an organisation called Get safe Online.
Click here to connect to their website page about safeguarding children online. From this page you can link to a wide range of other advice and information about protecting children and helping parents to protect themselves.
Here are some tips and useful links to help you to keep your children safe online:
Explore e-Safety Sites
There are lots of links to useful e-safety sites for children below. They are great fun to explore, so why not browse through them with your children?
- Hector / Lee & Kim – Hector, Lee and Kim will help children aged 5-7 to use the Internet safely.
- Cybercafe – KS2 children can use the cybercafe to explore different forms of technology safely.
- BBC Stay Safe– The BBC have set up this great site to help you to stay safe online. There are videos, games and interactive activities to try!
- Safe Surfing with Doug – This site, from Disney, will help you to stay safe on the Internet.
- Ask Kids – The children’s version of Ask. Very useful.
- Picsearch – Use this site to search for pictures. It’s much safer than Google Images, but remember that you still need to take care when searching for images online.
- Freefoto – A great site to find photos to use in your school projects.
- FactMonster – If you need to do research about a topic, FactMonster is a good place to try.
Keeping Safe
Facebook / Bebo / Myspace – Many of these sites have a minimum age limit of 13, so our pupils should NOT be using them. They do not offer the same levels of protection as Skoodle, allowing children to communicate with anyone.
Keep your computer in a shared area -Talk to your child about what they are doing online and, if possible, set up your computer in a shared area at home so that you can all share in the wonderful sites that are available online.
Links to more information
Think U Know – containing internet safety advice for those aged from 5 to 16, along with parents and teachers, this site is produced by CEOP (the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre).
Vodafone Parents – Vodafone have lots of fantastic practical advice for parents. You can also read their ‘Digital Parenting‘ magazine.
Internet Safety Zone – Look in the ‘Under 13s’ section for useful safety advice and information.
Kidsmart – An award-winning internet safety programme for children.
Know IT All – lots of useful advice for keeping yourselves and your children safe on the Internet.
Bullying UK – Information and advice about bullying for children, parents and schools.
Kidscape – An organisation which helps to prevent bullying and child abuse.
