Activity Blog Week Twelve
This week we are talking all about Online Safety and it has two parts – for pupils and for parents/carers.
For Pupils
We have 3 activities to get started, followed by some tips and advice to read.
The first activity is ‘Parents vs Kids’ Quiz from O2 NSPCC. https://www.o2.co.uk/help/nspcc/parents-vs-kids It’s an online quiz about the internet, apps, games, and more! Test your knowledge and see who knows more!
The next activity you could try this week is for 11-16 year olds, and is a choice of the following 4 checklists, downloadable from South West Grid for Learning Trust website. (https://swgfl.org.uk/). Their website has so much information on how to keep safe on the internet, and you can sign up to their newsletter to receive updates on the latest information.
Instagram Checklist https://swgfl.org.uk/resources/checklists/instagram/#resource
Twitter Checklist https://swgfl.org.uk/resources/checklists/twitter/
Facebook Checklist https://swgfl.org.uk/assets/documents/facebook-checklist.pdf
Snapchat Checklist https://swgfl.org.uk/resources/checklists/snapchat/
The last activity for this week is to create your own Internet Safe Poster to display near your computer or in your workspace. You can design your poster with all the helpful tips to remember, bright colours, and in any format or method you like. Remember the tips below, and work them into your poster, or you can use your own tips!
Be a Good Communicator
Stay Secure
Manage your Friends List
Stay Safe
Be in the circle of trust
Be Brave
Be Smart
Only accept messages from people you know
Speak up
Talk to Family
3 Tips for being safe online:
Talk. Remember to talk to your parents and carers about the websites and games you’re using, they just want to make sure you know how to keep safe. Show them your favourite app or game, what you like about it and see if they can have a go at beating your score or taking a funny selfie! It can be fun to get parents and carers involved, remember they didn’t have this kind of technology growing up!
Set a ‘screen free’ time limit every day. But here’s the fun part, its not just for you, it’s for the whole family, parents and carers included. In your screen free time, do an activity together, go on a walk, or do some baking? (make sure you print or write out the recipe first, so you don’t break your own rule!)
Support. Remember you parents and carers are there to help and support you with whatever is going on in your life. This includes online too, so if you receive any negative, bad, or even nasty messages or anything that makes you feel uncomfortable, it’s important to talk to your parents and carers about it, they will help you sort it out.
You are a team, and you need to all keep positive together, that includes keeping the family safe online, play your part and keep the conversation going.
This section is for Parents and Carers
Keeping the family safe online, especially with an increase in usage due to lockdown, is so important, and yet sometimes it seems so difficult. We’ve put together some of the best links and information we can find to help you keep you and your family safer online.
We have 3 main tips for you to focus on, and have summarised them below:
1. TALK. Talk about favourite apps and games, what can you do on them? If it’s a game; what’s the aim of the game? Are there any rewards? What do they do about in-app purchases? Are they on social media? Which is their favourite way of talking to friends? What do they like about it? Starting the conversation, or re-starting can take a bit of patience, but it helps to build a stronger connection and trust. Keep open lines of communication and remind children and young people they can talk to you anytime, if something is bothering them or upsetting them.
2. KNOW. Expand your knowledge of the apps, games, and social media that your children use. The best place to go for information on different apps, websites and games is Net Aware https://www.net-aware.org.uk/ they have guides on websites like Facebook, YouTube, SnapChat, TikTok and Games too. They regularly update their site when new apps and websites become popular, a new one is Wink, a social media platform to ‘make friends all over the world’ it uses profiles to connect you to people you don’t know. They have guide for parents on setting up and contact details for more support from O2 gurus and Advice line. Net Aware also have a whole section on Online Safety in Lockdown, check it out here: https://www.net-aware.org.uk/online-safety-lockdown/ You can also sign up to email updates from Net Aware so you are always up to date with current information. Here’s some helpful video’s from NSPCC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SI9wSVjl7I0 this first one is about online gaming. And this one is about Social Media https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv0wH2F0Rfk
3. REVIEW. Reviewing your privacy settings and checking if any updates have changed your default settings on your devices can also help. Regularly changing your parental control password might be useful too. You could set a reminder on your phone at a time that suits you best, either during school hours, or at night-time so it has less impact on your busy day with the family. There’s help and support available to do this, check out O2 website, linked here: https://www.o2.co.uk/help/nspcc/tools-and-tips They have some useful short videos on setting parental controls, managing privacy settings and setting strong passwords.
Good to know:
Here’s some helpful sites you can find out more information specific to what you need.
Social Media Age Restriction information can be found here: https://www.saferinternet.org.uk/blog/age-restrictions-social-media-services
UK Safer Internet Website has lots of professionally written blog articles on upcoming issues and internet topics, they also have lots of information, guides and advice. https://www.saferinternet.org.uk/
Best Futures Social Media Guide Blog Post https://www.bestfutures-school.co.uk/post/21st-century-lockdown
UK Council for Child Internet Safety https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/uk-council-for-child-internet-safety-ukccis
Think U Know https://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/ Advice for all ages on internet safety
Stay Safe Online and Offline!