E-safety page for Pupils
These suggestions will help you to learn about how to keep safe when you are online.
Hector, Lee and Kim is suitable for children aged 5 to 7.
The Cybercafe is great for children in key stage 2. It will help you look at the different forms of technology and how to use them safely.
BBC Stay Safe
The BBC have developed this site to help you learn about online safety. On the site are videos. games and other activities that you explore, while learning how to keep safe.
Safe Surfing with Doug
Lots of you know the character, Doug! He is a Disney character and on this site he guides you by showing you how to be safe online.
This is useful website full of online safety tips.
Children in year 5 and 6 may want to watch this video. It shows the dangers that can be lurking online.
Our school aims to provide a calm and positive environment, where children and staff are safe, healthy, happy, confident and motivated. We believe that our Internet Acceptable Use policy will support this aim. Our Internet Acceptable Use Policy has been written by the school, building on local and government guidance. It has been agreed by the staff and approved by the governors.
The school operates a CCTV system. We are obliged to run this within statutory guidelines and details of how this operates are in the CCTV policy.
We ask our parents recognise that educating children is a process that involves partnership between home and school and understand the importance of a good working relationship to equip children with the necessary skills for adulthood. For these reasons we welcome and encourage parents/carers to participate fully in the life of our school. Our Parent and Visitor Code of Conduct provides a reminder to all parent and visitors to our school about expected conduct so that we can work together to ensure a safe and positive school environment for our children. This includes parent/carer communications online. The Code of Conduct can be accessed below:
Children at Pensby Primary use the Internet on a regular basis as part of their learning. In school, we have regular ‘e-safety’ activities to remind children of the importance of keeping themselves safe online.
At home, sometimes children can be given unsupervised access to the Internet. This, potentially, allows them to access all kinds of society (both good and bad) and bring them virtually into their homes.
please watch this video – it strongly illustrates why we should all be aware of our children’s safety online:
Here are some tips and useful links to help you to keep your children safe online:
- Explore e-safety sites – There are lots of links to useful e-safety sites for children on the home page of this website. They are great fun to explore, so why not browse through them with your children?
- Facebook / Bebo / Myspace – Many of these sites have a minimum age limit of 13, so our pupils should NOT be using them. They can allow children to communicate with anyone and this puts them at risk.
- Keep your computer in a shared area – Talk to your child about what they are doing online and, if possible, set up your computer in a shared area at home so that you can all share in the wonderful sites that are available online.
- 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.
- 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. There is a link on the ‘Think u Know’ website which can help you find your service provider and set your controls.
- Help you child to understand that they should never give out personal details to online friends—personal information includes their messanger ID, email address, mobile number and any pictures of themselves, their family and friends. If your child publishes a picture or video online, anyone can change it or share it. Remind them that anyone could be looking at their images!
- If you child receives spam/junk email and texts, remind them never to believe them, reply to them or use them. It’s not a good idea for your child to open files 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 therefore it’s better to keep online mates online. They should never meet up with any strangers without an adult they trust.
Teach your child how to block someone online and how to report them if they feel uncomfortable.
The children in school are guided to use the internet very carefully. Parents and families need guidance too. Do you know how old your child should be to access Instagram? Snapchat? Please look at the information below – it may surprise you…..
The ‘Think you Know’ website is a useful resource to help us all keep our children safe online. In school we use these safety posters with the children to remind them of how to keep themselves safe online. This website and other useful website are listed below.
- Think U Know – containing internet safety advice for those aged from 5 to 16, along with parents and teachers, this site is produced by CEOP (the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre).
- Kidsmart – An award-winning internet safety programme for children.
- Know IT All – lots of useful advice for keeping yourselves and your children safe on the Internet.
- Bullying UK – Information and advice about bullying for children, parents and schools.
- Kidscape – An organisation which helps to prevent bullying and child abuse.
- Childline – ChildLine is the free helpline for children and young people in the UK.
On our e-safety page for pupils, you will find links to some excellent sites that will help you teach your child these skills.