E-safety is an integral part of children’s education in today’s digital world and is embedded in their learning at school. On this page we aim to share some resources that might be helpful for parents and children to support their understanding of e-safety out of school. If you have any questions about this, please talk to your child’s class teacher.
As a starting point the Department of Education has created a website with help and advice for families in a digital world: parentinfo.org. There is also a useful factsheet about cyberbullying:
The internet is clearly an important part of our lives and children can use it to learn, play, socialise and express themselves. It can be a very creative environment offering wonderful opportunities. However, technology can be daunting and many parents are understandably concerned about the potential risks their child may face including bullying, contact from strangers and access to inappropriate content.
The checklist below, which has guidance produced by CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command) might be a useful starting point when considering e-safety at home:
Childnet (www.childnet.com) suggests the following conversation starters for discussions about e-safety with your child:
• Ask your children to tell you about the sites they like to visit and what they enjoy doing online.
• Ask them about how they stay safe online. What tips do they have for you, and where did they learn them? What is OK and not OK to share?
• Ask them if they know where to go for help, where to find the safety advice, privacy settings and how to report or block on the services they use.
• Encourage them to help others. Perhaps they can show you how to do something better online or they might have a friend who would benefit from their help and support.
• Think about how you use the internet as a family. What could you do to get more out of the internet together and further enjoy your lives online?
Childnet also has a useful leaflet that you can download here:
At school, access the to the internet will be in teacher supervised lessons. Our computing curriculum covers safe use of the internet and we have filtering in place to limit access to inappropriate content.
You can view our E-Safety Policy here:
Social media and gaming
The legal age to have an account on most social media (Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Snapchat, TikTok) is 13 years old. Advice about these sites can be accessed via the UK Safer Internet Centre. Social media checklists which offer - up to date - guidance on security settings for these sites and apps can be found here.
This is a useful guide about young people and social networking sites:
Computer Games
Computer games have age ratings (similar to films) called PEGI (Pan European Game Information) ratings. You can access information about PEGI ratings at pegi.info. Though these ratings are a useful guide for parents/carers about the appropriateness of a game of app, it is also important to check the settings as a game that may seem to be suitable for younger children (eg. Roblox which is PEGI 7) can still have ‘chat’ facilities that pose a potential risk.
Additional Resources and Links
There is lots of additional information available online:
Childnet (www.childnet.com) is a great source of information as is Internet Matters (www.internetmatters.org). The CEOP site Think U Know has a really good section for parents/carers and information is organised by both topic and age range (www.thinkuknow.co.uk/parents).
If you or your child is concerned about something you see online then the CEOP safety centre offers advice and also a route to report concerns - www.ceop.police.uk/safety-centre.
Please also alert school if you’re a concerned about a particular site, game or app so we can share information with other parents on the form below:
Click here to return to details of our computing curriculum.