The internet is essential in 21st century life for education, business and social interaction. As children move up through the school their access to various types of technology increases and it stands to reason that their exploration and curiosity increases too. The positives of the digital world overwhelmingly outweigh the negatives but children, schools and parents all need to be aware of various online risks.
Parents help is still needed to prevent children accessing inappropriate material at home by way of filters and parental controls. On this page there is an extensive list of links and resources for Parents/Carers, Teachers and Young People to help you with your child’s online safety at home.
St Augustine’s Academy follows the SMART Rules:
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Twitch is a livestreaming service which tends to focus on gaming. Users can publicly broadcast their gameplay and commentary online for other users to watch. It’s a community-driven platform where viewers can support their favourite streamers’ channels through PayPal donations, “Bits” and more. Each streamer or group creates their own community for fans to interact with each other. Twitch has more than 15 million daily active users and includes non-gaming topics such as music, cooking and art. Anyone can create a channel to livestream or watch videos.
In the guide, you’ll find tips on a number of potential risks such as inappropriate content, private chat rooms and strangers.
Wink is a messaging app which allows children to connect and communicate with other users. In a similar style to Tinder, Wink uses the swipe method for browsing profiles and accepting or declining them. Once two users have accepted each other by swiping on each other’s profile, they can then communicate and play games online together. The fact that Wink allows children to share photos, personal information and their location with other users has caused significant concern.
In the guide, you’ll find tips on a number of potential risks such as grooming, cyberbullying and inappropriate content.
This is part of our Social Media, Online Relationships and Online Bullying categories.
Even before lockdowns inflamed the situation, one in every five 10- to 15-year-olds was experiencing bullying online: abusive messages, having rumours spread about them or being excluded from group chats, for example. Through smartphones and tablets, we’re used to being able to communicate from anywhere, at any time – but digital devices became commonplace so quickly that it caused a problem: as a society, we haven’t properly adjusted to how different they’ve made life. Our top tips can help you to build positive relationships online and avoid some of the potential issues.
In the guide, you’ll find a number of tips such as how to stop internet addiction, being aware of the dark side, and pressing ‘pause’.
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YouTube is a video-sharing social media platform that allows billions of people around the world to watch, share and upload their own videos with a vast range of content – including sport, entertainment, education and lots more. It’s a superb space for people to consume content that they’re interested in. As a result, this astronomically popular platform has had a huge social impact: influencing online culture on a global scale and creating new celebrities.
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You don’t need to be a football fan to have heard of the FIFA series of games (named after the Federation Internationale de Football Association: the worldwide governing body for the sport). Part of the franchise’s massive appeal is that official licensing gives users the opportunity to play games as their favourite teams, controlling their favourite footballers. They either compete online against other players or work through a solo-player career mode. With updated editions launched annually, FIFA is playable on a range of consoles, with mobile versions available for smartphones and tablets.
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Twitch is a gaming-focussed live-streaming service, owned by Amazon, where you can watch others play games live and listen to commentary as they play. It has 15 million daily active users and more than three million people live broadcast video game streams and other content on Twitch, with channels dedicated to just about every popular video game imaginable – both modern and retro. There are also shows that feature gaming competitions, professional tournaments, game-related chat and news. Plus, numerous non-gaming channels covering everything from cookery and music to art and travel. But Twitch is not just about watching other people’s shows – anyone can broadcast their own gaming action.
This year, the theme for Internet Safety Day is ‘Inspiring Change’. As a class, we felt that this meant – how can we change behaviour to have happy and safe experiences whilst online? To begin the day, we joined in a whole-school worship to introduce the day. We discussed why we would need to go on or use the internet and we found out there were lots of reasons; from watching videos to shopping or even chatting to people!
We were then asked; ‘who owns the internet?’ and this sparked a great conversation! We were shocked to learn that nobody owns the internet, anyone can create and post things online! Amazing… but we quickly realised this could be dangerous!
During our Computing unit – Emails – this half term, we have learned a lot about using email safely and so felt confident about sharing good online behaviours. To show this off and share our knowledge we each made eye-catching internet safety posters, listing Class 3’s rules for staying safe online! This are going to be shared in our Computing scrapbook and on our school website.
The Safer Internet Day slogan of “Together for a better internet” encourages everyone to join the movement, to participate, and to make the most of the internet’s potential to bring people together. With a global, community-led approach, Safer Internet Day encourages everyone to come together and play their part. There are many ways to do this…
Class 2 enjoyed an internet safety quiz today! They enjoyed learning about how to stay safe online and what they need to do if they feel unsure or unsafe! Great work Class 2!
Class 3
The children in Class 3 have already been exploring ‘Online Safety’ in Computing this half term, so we felt really confident going into this year’s Safer Internet Day! This year’s theme is: All Fun and Games? Respect and Relationships Online. We watched a film that showed other children of a similar talking about their experiences online and how we should always treat others with respect, just as we would in real life. We asked ourselves: if this person was stood right there in front of us, how would we respond if we were being our best selves? This really helped us realise that how we act online has an impact on people and their lives.
We also explored what we would do if we were disrespected online or saw someone else being a victim. We explored ‘screenshots’ of such behaviours with our alien friend ‘Jig’, who had travelled to earth and wanted some advice on how to respond. Some of his screenshots included people trying to ‘trade’ items in-game, others sending private messages to others to leave one person out, people sending abusive or mean comments in a game server and so on. We looked what icons we can click on to help us (reporting and blocking) if this happened to us. We also spoke about the need to screenshot such behaviours and messages as proof of what that person said in case they attempt to delete it. Always tell a trusted adult – that was this most important lesson for us all.
Other things we explored were in-game transactions in the ‘store’, hours we spend gaming, what ‘multiplayer’ really means, and ranks (how far up the leader board we are). If a game stops being fun and makes us feel stressed or anxious – stop.
To show our learning we created posters our friend Jig could take back with him to help his neighbours on Planet Gnimag! It was an important but fun afternoon!
An internet we trust: exploring reliability in the online world
This year in the UK, Safer Internet Day explores reliability online. The internet has an amazing range of information and opportunities online, but how do we separate fact from fiction?
Safer Internet Day will be celebrated globally with the slogan: Together for a better internet.
1:30pm – Safer Internet Day with Liverpool FC
Returning for another year, Liverpool FC will be joining us for a live event this Safer Internet Day to talk about the theme of reliability online. With their support, this important topic around online safety will reach as many young people as possible. This event will take place on the UK Safer Internet Centre Youtube Channel.
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As part of Safer Internet Day 2021, Class 3 watched UK Safer Internet’s 5-11 video based on the question: What can we trust online? We listened to children present their four ‘facts’ about meerkats and we had to think about if they were true or false. One of the children in Class 3 rightly pointed out that a fact should always be true and accurate, otherwise it’s just an opinion (lots of work on persuasive texts is really paying off!). So people shouldn’t portray statements as facts if they aren’t necessarily true.
We talked about how that would make us feel if were mislead online and how we can check if things we see online are accurate (on YouTube, social media, games, messages and so on). Talking to a trusted adult in our lives and checking statements on other trusted websites are good ways to keep us safe online and to make sure what we are looking at is reliable!
Please click here to watch the KS2 video.
In Class 2 we have been looking at how to keep safe on the internet. We learnt the do’s and don’ts of playing online and on apps and games. These were the main points we discussed from a story we used: use the internet and apps with a grown-up nearby, ask a grown-up before downloading an app, do not talk to strangers, do not give out any information about you and remember that not all apps and websites are for children. We created posters to display the important messages to remind everyone about this important topic.
Find your service provider and learn how to set your controls
It can be difficult to know how to start talking to your child about what they’re doing online or who they might be speaking to. But talking regularly, like you would about their day at school, will help your child feel relaxed and mean that when they do have any worries, they’re more likely to come and speak to you. It can help to:
reassure them that you’re interested in their life, offline and online. Recognise that they’ll be using the internet to research homework as well talking to their friends.Thinkuknow is a very informative website with lots of information for parents. Please click on the image below to access the website.
Please click Here for the NSPCC information on keeping safe online.
For more information on internet safety please click here
SUAT supports and leads in the set-up of new academies joining the partnership. The services provided by the central support function cover both educational and non-educational support. In terms of educational support, SUAT is linked to the School of Education of Staffordshire University, which is an outstanding ITT provider.
