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.
Online Safety Policy 2024-25
St Augustine’s Academy follows the SMART Rules:

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What Parents Need To Know About Twitch
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.

This Weeks Focus: What Parents Need To Know About Wink
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.

This Weeks Focus: Inspiring Children to Build a Better Digital World
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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This Weeks Focus: What Parents Need to Know About YouTube
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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This Weeks Focus: What Parents Need to Know About FIFA
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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This Weeks Focus: What Parents Need to Know About Twitch
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 Weeks Focus: WhattsApp
Internet Safety – 6th February 2024 – Class 3…
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.

Safer Internet Day 8th February
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!
Safer Internet Day 9th February 2021
Safer Internet Day 2021 will be celebrated in the UK with the theme:
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.
Where to watch: UKSIC Youtube
Risks Children Face Online

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Reporting to CEOP

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Using Parental Controls

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Worried your child has shared too much

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Worried your child will see something inappropriate online.

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Safer Internet Videos by Staffordshire Police
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.
Top Tips for talking about staying safe online
- Talk to your child about what they’re up to online. Be a part of their online life; involve the whole family and show an interest. Find out what sites they visit and what they love about them, if they know you understand they are more likely to come to you if they have any problems.
- Watch Thinkuknow films and cartoons with your child. The Thinkuknow site has films, games and advice for children from five all the way to 16.
- Encourage your child to go online and explore! There is a wealth of age-appropriate sites online for your children. Encourage them to use sites which are fun, educational and that will help them to develop online skills.
- Keep up-to-date with your child’s development online. Children grow up fast and they will be growing in confidence and learning new skills daily. It’s important that as your child learns more, so do you.
- Set boundaries in the online world just as you would in the real world. Think about what they might see, what they share, who they talk to and how long they spend online. It is important to discuss boundaries at a young age to develop the tools and skills children need to enjoy their time online.
- Discuss with your older children what they should or shouldn’t be showing their younger siblings on the internet, mobile devices, games consoles and other devices.
- Keep all equipment that connects to the internet in a family space. For children of this age, it is important to keep internet use in family areas so you can see the sites your child is using and be there for them if they stumble across something they don’t want to see.
- Know what connects to the internet and how. Nowadays even the TV connects to the internet. Make sure you’re aware of which devices that your child uses connect to the internet, such as their phone or games console. Also, find out how they are accessing the internet – is it your connection, or a neighbour’s wifi? This will affect whether the safety setting you set are being applied.
- Use parental controls on devices that link to the internet, such as the TV, laptops, computers, games consoles and mobile phones. Parental controls are not just about locking and blocking, they are a tool to help you set appropriate boundaries as your child grows and develops. They are not the answer to your child’s online safety, but they are a good start and they are not as difficult to install as you might think. Service providers are working hard to make them simple, effective and user friendly
Find your service provider and learn how to set your controls
Starting a conversation about online safety
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:
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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.
- ask your child to show you what they enjoy doing online or apps they’re using so you can understand them.
- be positive but also open about anything you’re worried about. You could say “I think this site’s really good” or “I’m a little worried about things I’ve seen here.”
- ask them if they’re worried about anything, and let them know they can come to you.
- ask them about their friends online and how they know they are who they say they are.
- listen for the reasons why your child wants to use apps or site you don’t think are suitable, so you can talk about these together.
- ask your child what they think’s okay for children of different ages so they feel involved in the decision making.
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.