Online Safety at St Michael’s
We understand that technology plays a huge part in all of our lives in the 21st Century. As such, we know that technology poses risks as much as it does opportunities for great learning, communication and entertainment both in and outside of school. We recognise the range of existing e-safety issues and work hard to update our knowledge of issues as they arise.
As part of the Computing curriculum, we teach children to understand computer networks such as the internet and the opportunities they offer for communication and collaboration. These can provide highly positive experiences for children but it is also a platform on which cyber-bullying, abuse and trolling can take place and that some content poses risks to their mental health and wellbeing. We strive to teach children to identify a range of ways to report concerns about and get support with issues that they may face online. We also teach children to be discerning consumers of information that they find online, evaluating its authenticity and reliability.
Alongside the Computing curriculum, the school teaches online safety through the ProjectEvolve scheme of online safety lessons and through the Jigsaw scheme of learning for PSHE. We use both the Education for a Connected World framework and the Relationship and Sex Education curriculum to support the teaching and learning of online safety. Our aim is that by the time our children leave us at the end of Year 6, they are respectful, knowledgeable and safe users of information technology.
We have compiled some useful links for parents that can be found on this page.
Online Safety Workshop for Parents/Carers
Each year, we host an online workshop ran by the Southwest Grid for Learning (SWGfL). The online world is an exciting place for our children but it is more important than ever to support them to know how to be safe. These sessions help parents to know what they could do to, hopefully, stay one step ahead. We received wonderful feedback from parents that attended a past live session, it was considered to be “really useful and definitely worth a watch”. If you have any queries regarding the online training please email admin@stmichaelsaldbourne.co.uk.
Useful links for parents:
- Thinkuknow
Information on what to do if you are concerned about your child and how to report incidents to CEOP. This website also gives information on how keeping your children safe. - Childnet
Lots of resources/ideas that can be used by your children to help them learn to keep safe online. - Safer Internet
Provides tips, advice, guides and resources to help keep your children safe online. - NSPCC
Provides advice for parents on a variety of subjects from setting up parental controls to sexting to online games. - PEGI – providing age classifications for video games
Provides help to parents, allowing them to make informed decisions when buying video games. - Childnet – family agreement – A family agreement is a great way to start a conversation with your whole family about how you all use the internet, and to start discussions together around how to behave in a positive way when online, whether this is at home, at school or at a friend’s.
- UK Safer Internet Centre – Tips, advice, guides and resources to help keep your child safe online.
- Internetmatters.org – Parental Controls – Give your child a safe space to explore their curiosity online. A step by step parental controls guides will help you to set up the right controls and privacy settings on the networks, gadgets, apps, and sites they use to give them a safer online experience.
- Children’s Commissioner – Information about talking to children about online sexual harassment.
