Online Safety

Staff teach pupils how to keep themselves safe. This includes staying safe online and understanding what safe and healthy relationships look like. – Ofsted, November 2022

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.

We at Springcroft follow the SMART Rules:

If you would like to share any information or require any further support please do not hesitate to contact your child’s class teacher.

Your help is still needed to prevent children accessing inappropriate material at home by way of filters and parental controls. Look below at our extensive list of links and resources for Parents/Carers, Teachers and Young People to help you with your child’s online safety at home.

How to use the internet safely:

Overview of key parental controls

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

Following on from a report from the UK Council for Internet Safety which highlighted the challenges parents, schools and communities face in Online Safety matters, we have subscribed to a monthly online safety newsletter, which is attached to this email.

We hope you find this Newsletter informative and helpful, and we want to work with schools to promote the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all.

Internet Matters.org
Internet Matters is a fantastic resource for parents to help parents keep their children safe on the internet

Explore cyberbullying and online harassment, and get help
Online bullying can have serious consequences in the real world. You've come to the right place for information. This section includes resources for Schools and Partners.

Parent INFO

Help and advice for families in a digital world. Parent Info is a collaboration between Parent Zone and NCA-CEOP, providing support and guidance for parents from leading experts and organisations

CEOP

The CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre) logo pictured here is on a lot of social networking sites. It is the Advice, Help and Report button. Clicking on it will take you to their website, where you can easily follow links for help if you are a parent or child. It is excellent, so please try it now!

Thinkyouknow

Highly recommended is the Thinkyouknow website. Click the image to go to the website and get the latest safety information.

This is an education initiative by CEOP - the UKs national law enforcement agency that focuses on tackling sexual abuse of children.

Below are some quick links for parents to some key questions and Top Tips in their 'Growing up online' section.

Top Tips

What is my child doing online?

How do I talk to my child about what they're doing online?

What risks might my child face?

What tools are there to help me keep my child safe?

Childnet International

This contains detailed information regarding specific topics such as social networking, online grooming, gaming and downloading.

A simple and effective way to get involved with your children and their lives online is through discussion. Why not use our conversation starters for parents and carers to get the ball rolling? Click on the picture above.

CBBC Stay Safe

CBBC Stay Safe is a super internet survival guide for you and your child/ren. Here are the tips and tricks you'll need to stay safe online, beat the cyber-bullies and become a super-surfer.

NSPCC Share Aware Campaign

Launched in January 2015, this campaign aims to raise awareness of how to help your child stay safe on social networks, apps and games. They have a useful guide to the social networks young people are using on their Net Aware website:http://www.net-aware.org.uk/

Links for Parents/Carers

Ask About Games - Advice on computer gaming and how to apply parental controls

Early Years e-safety - help introduce young children to the idea of internet safety
Get Safe Online - Advice and guidance on Safety online
Vodaphone Safety - Advice from Vodaphone
Yahoo Safety Tips - Advice from Yahoo
CBBC Safe search – Excellent Child friendly Search engine for Primary Schools
NEN Image Gallery - for images to use in the classroom
TeacherTube - Video Sharing website
Edublogs - Blogging in Schools
Easywhois - Useful website to check who registered/owns a website
All about Explorers - Teaching children to evaluate reliability of online information.
That's Not Cool - advice on digital relations for KS2/3/4
Windows family safety - Set up Windows safety controls.

Software to help you

Anti Bullying App

We do not allow mobile phones in school, which combats phone bullying here, but we know that mobiles are used outside school. You can help your child by using an Android App which blocks the bully's number, so you don't have to receive unwanted texts or calls. The bully doesn't know that their number is blocked. It is now a free app. Click the image to find out more.

This software blocks inappropriate websites, including pornographic ones. It also monitors emails and social networks for unsuitable content, grooming phrases, sex words and other danger words. Click the image to find out more.

Visit Google's Safety Centre to learn how to change Google's search settings to SafeSearch filtering:http://www.google.co.uk/familysafety/tools.html

This setting is designed to screen sites with explicit sexual text and images that you don't want your child to stumble across when browsing the internet.

Top Tips for Safer Surfing!

1. Remind your child that the internet is not a private space. Any information that your child puts online can be shared with anyone and may be used in a harmful way.

2. Keep communication open! Let your child know that it’s never too late to tell if something or someone is making them uncomfortable.

3. Teach your child to only open emails from people they know. Files may contain inappropriate images, content or viruses

4. Keep the computer somewhere in the house where it is easy for you to monitor what they are viewing.

5. Use internet filtering software and your browser’s control to offer the degree of security needed to protect your child.

What are the dangers and risks to my child from the internet?

Content (Child is exposed to this material)	Contact (Child is communicating)	Conduct (Child is actively doing Something themselves)
Commercial	Adverts Spam	Personal information given	Illegal downloading Gambling Hacking Financial Scams
Aggressive	Violent content	Being Bullied Being Stalked	Bullying others
Sexual	Pornographic images/text	Being Groomed Meeting Strangers	Uploading inappropriate material
Values	Racism Bias Misleading info	Is subject to persuasion (self-harm/anorexia)	Providing misleading info to others

Information on the table was taken from "Safer Children in a Digital World" - a report by Dr Tanya Byron.

You can download for free the report or its summary on the Department for Education website

Did you know that Facebook requires users to be 13 years old before they can create their own account?

Digizen

Digizen is a game provided by Childnet International. You can play Digizen with your child. This game gives you different decisions and options to make about internet use and friendships in a school day and the consequences. Click the image to find out more.

I love my phone and tablet but never get changed or undressed on camera.

LGfL Undressed resources