Keeping children safe online 
        

At Marsh Lane Primary we are committed to working towards keeping our pupils safe online. We are therefore working alongside the 360safe audit and accreditation in order to ensure we are providing the best online safety education to our children and parents.

Online Safety

Our first priority is to keep all pupils safe within a caring and secure environment, whether researching for a piece of home learning, using apps on tablets or gaming with friends through game consoles; children have more access than ever to many types of internet communication. We therefore need to ensure that they are equipped with the skills to be confident digital citizens.

We approach online safety in two ways. The first places emphasis on pupils to develop their own responsibility for helping to create a better, safer, more respectful online community. The second is knowing what to do if anything goes wrong. These are taught through specific, age appropriate lessons in our computing and PSHE curriculums, 'Safer Internet Week' activities and school assemblies.

However, to be completely successful, we need to work with our parents to ensure the online safety messages are consistent. It is important that parents speak to their children about how they can keep safe and behave appropriately online.

How can you help to keep your children safe online?

The digital world is fast overtaking the real one and it is important that Marsh Lane Primary School and Parents work together to ensure our children are safe both in the real world and online. a copy of our school E-safety policy can be found by clicking here

We very much hope these tips are useful:

• Know what your children are doing online and who they are talking to. Ask them to teach you to use any applications you have never used.
• Keeping the computer in a family room means that you can share your child’s online experience – and that they are less likely to act inappropriately (i.e. via webcam).
• Help your children to understand that they should never give out personal details to online friends — personal information includes their messenger ID, email address, mobile number and any pictures of themselves, their family or friends. If your child publishes a picture or video online, anyone can change it or share it. Remind them that anyone may be looking at their images and one day a future employer could!
• If your child receives spam/junk email & 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 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 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.
• Teach young people how to block someone online and how to report them if they feel uncomfortable.

To learn more about the risks facing our children when they use computers, please log on to www.thinkuknow.co.uk.

Other useful websites:

https://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/keeping-children-safe/online-safety/                                                           

www.digizen.org/downloads/cyberbullyingOverview.pdf
www.connectsafely.org/guides-2/
www.kidsmart.org.uk

Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) is a police agency tackling child abuse on the internet. Their website www.ceop.police.uk includes a unique facility that enables parents and young people to make reports of actual or attempted abuse online.