Our own special whole school ‘Cyber Safety week’ was held during the week commencing 19th February to co-inside with the booking of our special guest speakers and workshops (Safer Internet Day 2018 nationally took place on 6th February).
During each day, we have focused on a different aspect of cyber safety. In Pre-reception, the children held special discussions in their normal timetabled activities focussed on the safe use of Ipads and looking at ‘Buddy the dog’s internet safety story’. In Reception discussions included looking at what types of technology are used at school and home. We altered the timetable slightly for KS1 and KS2 so that lesson one each day was a dedicated lesson, taught by Form Tutors, to be used to explore the complex world of cyber safety and to help our children understand how they can protect themselves and others when using the internet.
Topics the children explored in KS1 and KS2 included communicating on-line and social networking; cyberbullying and how to report abuse, and to understand how to be positive, kind and respectful on-line.
On Tuesday the children in Year 4, 5 and 6 also had the opportunity to participate in special workshops run by Tom Pinfield from Childnet International. During Year Four’s workshop topics included thinking about what makes a reliable website and how do we know what data shown is reliable? Another aspect covered was discussing how children would respond if they were contacted about being given free robux – would they give away their passwords? The Years 5 & 6 were combined to participate in another workshop tailored to their needs and being mindful of the fact that they will soon be moving onto different schools. Tom then ran a special twilight information session for parents which was very well received indeed. Special thanks must be given to FOSH who have kindly offered to pay for this event out of their wonderful fundraising.
In addition, on Wednesday, there was a special whole-school assembly on internet safety based on the theme ‘create, connect and share respect: a better internet starts with you’. The theme encourages our children to work together to be positive, safe and respectful on-line.