1. Esafety information session How to keep our children safe in a digital world

2. Aims • To increase awareness of the risks and rewards of using digital technology • Understand what safety measures can be put in place at home to protect children online • Increase awareness of how esafety is taught in school • Find out about the Virtual Learning Platform

3. “Everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal.” Douglas Adams

5. How can the Internet Help Our Children to Learn? • Access to learning resources enables children to develop research skills and take charge of their own learning. Limitless source of information. • Access to the wider world through photos and video clips. Broadens horizons and helps to develop interests • Simulations bring situations to life e.g. Horrible Histories on CBBC website. • Allows children to be creative and provides access to a worldwide audience • Developing communication skills • Makes learning accessible to all, through audio and visual resources. • Promotes economic well being by developing skills they will need in their future career AT SCHOOL INTERNET SKILLS ARE DEVELOPED UNDER ADULT SUPERVISION

6. What Are the Risks? • Viruses and Spam • Accessing or receiving inappropriate material • Cyberbullying • Financial Risks • Giving out personal information • Health and Wellbeing • Inappropriate contact from adults

7. The Internet at Home Key Points from a 2012 Ofcom Report • 46% of 3 and 4 year olds use the internet via a computer, tablet or mobile phone • Around 1 in 7 of all children aged 5-15 use a tablet computer (such as an Ipad) at home. This figure has tripled in the last 2 years. • Slightly more than 1 in 5 (22%) 8-11 year olds say they have a profile on a social networking site and have an average of 92 friends. When questioned, they estimate that about 1 in 8 of these friends they have never met in person.

8. Virtual Worlds and Online Gaming • Habbo Hotel • Club Penguin • Runescape • Neopets • Moshi Monsters • Minecraft • Games consoles

9. How can you minimise these risks at home? • Set clear boundaries- decide on time limits for things like playing on game consoles or using the Internet • Stay vigilant- ensure that your child uses Internet-connected equipment in a family room so that you can see what’s going on • Keep Control- set up a profile for your child on the family computer with appropriate settings and make the most of parent controls and tools like Google safe search • Get familiar- find out about age ratings on apps, online TV, games and films so that you can be sure that the material your child is accessing is approriate • Agree Rules- involve your child in devising some rules for using the internet, so that they understand why they are necessary to keep them safe e.g. only going to agreed sites, not giving away any personal information or not downloading any unknown files

10. How do we minimize these risks at school? • All year 1 and 2 children take part in lessons designed to develop awareness of the risks when using the Internet and how they can protect themselves. • All internet use within school is supervised and submitted to the rigorous filtering system provided by the LA. • The children will have to read an ‘Appropriate Use of the Internet’ statement before they can use the school computers to go online. • The children will have the opportunity to develop their eSafety awareness within the supervised environment of the school learning platform; Digitalbrain primary.

11. How We Teach eSafety in School? • We use age appropriate material which can be found on www.childnet.com and www.cybersmart.gov.au • We look at video’s and interactive books which enables the children to learn about Internet safety in a non-threatening, child-friendly way • We then reinforce these concepts through small group work. The children share ideas and create posters which communicate the rules in their words.

12. What are the SMART rules? • Safe- Never sharing personal information online. • Meeting- meeting someone we only know online can be dangerous. Online friends remain online friends. • Accepting- Never open files, photo’s emails e.t.c. from strangers; they may contain viruses or nasty messages- delete them straight away. • Reliable- Information you find on the internet may not be true, or someone online may be lying about who they are. • Tell- Tell your parent, carer or a trusted adult if someone or something makes you feel uncomfortable or worried, or if you or someone you know is being bullied online.

13. How does our VLE help to reinforce eSafety rules? • The children are able to create their own homepage where they can post blogs, join community forums and email each other, just like other social networking sites. • Unlike other social networking sites e.g. MySpace or Facebook, the children are only able to communicate, befriend and correspond with other pupils or school staff. • All communications can be observed and monitored by the VLE administrators. • Children are able to ‘make mistakes’ regarding eSafety in a protected environment.