We had an excellent Online Safety session with the people from the Safety Centre yesterday!
The children talked through their use of social media and internet access both at home and at school and discussed the pros and cons of different experiences and scenarios that either they themselves or other people have faced.
We learnt that children’s brains are still developing therefore they need to protect themselves with the images, games and other materials they are seeing. We also learnt that children need to switch off their electronic games an hour before their bedtimes to ensure a quality night’s sleep! This shocked the children!
We also discussed our privacy settings on our social media, phones, the internet and games. The passwords we have were referred to as a toothbrush; it is personal to you and you wouldn’t share it with anyone!
Finally, the children learnt how to protect themselves from cyber bullying. The learnt that by keeping texts, emails and any other written content they have is an evidence trail which might be useful. We also learnt that any messages sent by any phones, emails, game consoles or social media leave a digital footprint. The children now know the saying ‘zip it, block it, flag it’ which will ensure they can keep themselves safe online.
The children have developed some next steps which they can follow up at home to make themselves safe. These are:
- Children need to look at their ‘friends’ on their social media sites or games and ask themselves; are these really friends that I know and trust? If not, delete them!
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Children need to check their security settings on their social media or any other electronic equipment they use and make sure they are set to private which only your friends can see. Parents, please check your children’s security settings on social media if you are allowing them to be on there.
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Please visit www.thinkuknow.co.uk with your child for information, games and more about the CEOP advice button- which can be used to report abuse online.
Here are some of our photos:
