| Teacher's Blog
Last week was Safer Internet Week at Sherborne House School which is important in order to raise awareness about the safe and positive use of technology.
Nationally, there was a Safer Internet Day on Tuesday 5th February (promoted by the Safer Internet Centre) with the U.K focus being:
‘Our internet, our choice: understanding consent in a digital world’, and with the global theme being: ‘together for a better internet’.
As part of my PSHE & C Leadership role within the school, I’ve been organising annual Internet Safety Weeks at Sherborne House school for several years now to promote our children’s understanding of how to keep safe in today’s digital world. However, the internet safety message is also continually reinforced at school for example; in weekly dedicated ICT lessons and also whenever children access technology to support their learning in the wider curriculum.
I am pleased to report that this year’s Internet Safety Week has once again been a success. Our focus has included (but not been limited to) enhancing our children’s understanding of the benefits of the internet for all the different types of users, not just children but parents, companies, schools, governments and users worldwide.
The children have benefited from thinking about how we all need to work together to keep safe. We have explored the meaning of consent and reinforced that it is another word for permission. Children have now a better understanding that we have to ask permission for some things, and give permission for others, when we are online as well as offline. In addition to this we have explored the importance of privacy settings and passwords; for our older children the uses of social networking and how to use it safely and wisely such as not giving out personal information and images. To further enable understanding of what bullying is we have examined with the children what actually is cyberbullying and how to protect themselves and report it if they feel vulnerable.
See a gallery of their work created during Internet Safety Week and read about what Year 5 and Year 6 have been doing.
Our whole-school assembly on Wednesday morning helped both celebrate the wonders of the digital world and reinforce the important safety message through the joy of song.
I should also mention that one particular Sherborne House Learning Power has been excitedly discussed this week by the children and that is, of course, Raj our Responsible Raccoon. The children now have a deeper understanding that they too, like Raj can be responsible when using digital technology.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the children for engaging so positively in all their special dedicated Internet Safety lessons this week and to the staff who have helped make this week a very worthy success.
Mrs Holmes, PSHE & C Co-ordinator