Online Safety
At Sherdley we take internet online safety (E-Safety) very seriously and we have recently been given access to some very good leaflets on keeping children safe online. The leaflets cover some of the most popular online accounts that children might be using.
The leaflet guides currently cover a range of online sites, for example: Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat, TikTok, Roblox, Playstation 5, Minecrafte etc
They contain some excellent advice about what each account is, how it works and what the dangers are. They also give details on how to set parameters and parental controls properly to keep the accounts as private and safe as possible.
Although there is a minimum age restriction (guidance) of at least 13 years old for many accounts, we know that children do access them. A quick ‘Hands-up’ survey was carried out in Years 6 to Year 2, approx. 300 children, and was surprised by the amount of children that regularly use and have the above accounts.
Netflix = 45.7% ; TikTok = 36.3%; Roblox = 69.3%; Snapchat = 29.6%; Instagram = 14%; Facebook = 3% and Twitter = 2.5%.
Rather worryingly, 10 children in Y2 responded by saying they had TikTok accounts (which has a minimum age of 13).
Please can you take the time to read these leaflets and discuss them with your children about how to keep themselves safe online. We can’t stop children using these accounts, but the more they (and you) understand how they work and the dangers they can hold, the more responsibility they will take in using them in a safe manner.
I hope you find these useful and any feedback would be appreciated.
Thank you for your ongoing support,
Useful Links
- Thinkuknow provides advice from the National Crime Agency (NCA) on staying safe online
- Childnet offers a toolkit to support parents and carers of children of any age to start discussions about their online life, to set boundaries around online behaviour and technology use, and to find out where to get more help and support
- UK Safer Internet Centre has tips, advice, guides and other resources to help keep children safe online, including parental controls offered by home internet providers and safety tools on social networks and other online services
- Childnet – Online Gaming There is updated guidance in schools relating to Safeguarding your children in place from September 2021. One of the significant changes is that school will be placing a much greater emphasis on Online Safety including teaching children even more about how to behave online. This link is to some specific guidance for parents in relation to online gaming, which is something that we know a LOT of our children engage with. The website overall has lots and lots of ideas to support you with matters related to online activity and social media safety.