E-Safety
The internet, mobile technologies, portable games consoles, social networking and
instant messaging services are all becoming increasingly more important in society.
As a school, we recognise our role is not to ignore these technologies or to assume
that our children know how to use them, but to teach children how to act responsibly
and to help protect themselves online.
Children are taught about e-safety within their classes and through whole school
campaigns such as Safer Internet Days.
Top E-Safety Tips for Parents and Carers!
ï€ Help your children to understand that they should never give out personal details to
online friends they do not know offline.
• Explain to your children what information about them is personal: i.e. email address,
mobile number, school name, sports club, arrangements for meeting up with friends
and any pictures or videos of themselves, their family or friends. Small pieces of
information can easily be pieced together to form a comprehensive insight in to their
lives and daily activities.
• Make your children aware that they need to think carefully about the information and
pictures they post on their profiles. Inform them that once published online, anyone
can change or share these images of them.
• It can be easy to forget that the internet is not a private space, and as result
sometimes young people engage in risky behaviour online. Advise your children not
to post any pictures, videos or information on their profiles, or in chat rooms, that
they would not want a parent or carer to see.
• If your child receives spam or junk email and texts, remind them never to believe
their contents, reply to them or use them.
• It's not a good idea for your child to open files that are from people they don't know.
They won't know what they contain—it could be a virus, or worse - an inappropriate
image or film.
• Help your child to understand that some people lie online and that therefore it's
better to keep online mates online. They should never meet up with any strangers
without an adult they trust.
• Always keep communication open for a child to know that it's never too late to tell
someone if something makes them feel uncomfortable.
Useful Links:
http://www.nextgenerationlearning.org.uk/At-Home/parent-resource-finder/
Social Networking
As we all know, social networking sites such as ‘Facebook’ are widely used by
parents and older children (children should be 13 to hold a Facebook account) We
feel it important to point out to parents the risks of underage use of such sites, so
you can make an informed decision as to whether to allow your child to have a
profile or not. These profiles will have been created away from school and
sometimes by a child, their friends, siblings or even parents.
Occasionally sites are used to publically discuss matters which may include personal
disagreements between pupils, parents and school matters. Such comments can be
considered to be ‘defamatory’ and lead to the onset of legal action being taken
against those who made them.
We will take action (such as reporting under aged profiles and defamatory
comments) if such a problem comes to our attention.
Further advice for parents/carers is available from Facebook.