E-safety Advice for Parents
All children at Swanland Primary School are well versed in E-safety at an age-appropriate level. Here is advice for parents to help safe-guard your children, provided by Google.
Keep computers in a central place. This makes it easier to keep an eye on your child’s activities.
Know where your child goes online. If you have young children you might use the internet with them. For older children you could talk about what kinds of sites they like to visit and what isn’t appropriate for your family. You can also check where your child has been by looking at the history in your browser menu. Another option is to use filtering tools like Google SafeSearch.
Teach internet safety. It’s impossible to monitor your child’s online activity all the time. As they get older, they need to know how to use the internet safely and responsibly when they’re on their own.
Use privacy settings and sharing controls. Many sites that feature user-generated content, including YouTube, Blogger and social networking sites, have sharing controls that put users in charge of who sees personal blogs, photos, videos and profiles. Using sharing controls is particularly important when you share personal information such as names, addresses and phone numbers, on public sites. (At school we always advise pupils not to share any personal data online.) Teach your child to respect the privacy of friends and family by not identifying people by name in public profiles and pictures.
Protect passwords. Remind your child not to give out their passwords. Teach your child how to create a memorable password and record it safely. Make sure they make a habit of unclicking ‘remember me’ settings on public computers such as those at school or in the library.
Beware of strangers. Teach your child not to arrange in-person meetings with people they ‘meet’ online, and not to share personal information with online strangers because people may not be who they claim to be.
Help prevent viruses. Use anti-virus software and update it regularly. Make sure your child avoids downloading from file-sharing websites and don’t accept files or open email attachments from unknown people.
Teach your children to communicate responsibly. Take the following as a good rule of thumb: if you wouldn’t say it to someone’s face, don’t text it, instant message it, or post it as a comment on someone’s page.
View all content critically. Just because you see it online, there’s no guarantee it’s true. Children should learn how to distinguish reliable sources from unreliable ones, and how to verify information they find online. Make sure children understand that cutting and pasting content directly from a website may be plagiarism.
Please find below a series of links for parents to access.
Moving to secondary school – Tools to support the Year 6 transition.
As children transition from Primary School to Secondary, they experience many digital firsts, with many getting their first smartphone.
Help them understand the possible risks and benefits of going online with our resources for parents, carers and teachers
You may have heard of Musical.ly (think of it as a kind of karaoke platform). TikTok is the new name for the expanded version of the app, which enables users to upload, watch and create short videos of between three and 60 seconds. Here’s what you need to know: Tik Tok
Help your child to stay safe when using their mobile phones.
The website O2 has tips for parents, the resources are designed to help parents have more regular conversations with their children about online safety – enabling more families to enjoy the digital world with confidence.
National Online Safety is a fantastic website with many parent guides to popular social media sites that your children may access. It includes guides to WhatsApp, Fifa, Fortnite, Instagram, minecraft and Snapchat, amongst many others. It will also give information and advive on trending apps and websites.
Among Us was one of the most popular games of 2020. A space-themed ‘social deduction game’ where 4-10 players take on the guise of Crewmates, who must complete various tasks around their spaceship, while randomly selected Imposters must try their hardest to sabotage the others’ efforts. The Imposters have to remain undetected through rounds of voting to win. While Among Us is a largely safe game, it’s still prudent to be aware of any potential risks young ones might encounter when playing.
In the guide, you’ll find tips on a number of potential risks such as hacking, mild violence and inappropriate language.
Roblox is a popular programme used by many children. Roblox features a central dashboard to limit the chat functions, add a parental pin and account restrictions (to only access curated content by Roblox). Roblox also has a useful feature called ‘Age Visibility’ to determine settings for kids are age appropriate.
Parent’s Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids
Is YouTube Kids really safe for kids? How does it work, and how do you set filters and parental controls? Learn more about this kid-targeted, but sometimes iffy, YouTube-lite app
Restricted Mode is an opt-in setting that helps screen out explicit and adult content to protect your children when they use YouTube. It also screens out comments on all videos your child watches.
SafeSearch can help you block inappropriate or explicit images from your Google Search results. The SafeSearch filter isn’t 100% accurate, but it helps you avoid most violent and adult content.
While the Internet can be a great resource for Children, parents should be aware of what their child is accessing online. This section on the website Tutorhunt will help guide parents and adults with Internet Safety awareness, support and tools to prevent children accessing harmful material online such as inappropriate content, cyberbullying, online predators and sexual harassment.
If your child uses the app musical.ly
If your child uses x-box live then the following link may be useful for on-line safety xbox live
Information about broadband and parental controls and internet safety for children.
safety advisor newsletter for parents
Childnet – know it all for parents
Autumn 2015 saw the release of this excellent new website. It was developed out of a partnership between CEOP and The Parent Zone and contains lots of good eSafety advice.
If you’re a parent, you can help your children use the Internet safely by teaching some basic rules. Here are some basic lessons that parents can help their children learn. You may also want to use the following website link on internet matters.org
Kidsmart is an award winning internet safety website for parents and those working with children. It has been developed by the children’s internet charity Childnet International and has excellent information on many of the technologies used by children, with guidance on how to ‘stay safe’ online.
One in five young people have experienced bullying by text message or via email. This web site gives advice for children and parents on cyberbullying.
Being very accessible, this provides information and guidance to parents to help under the digital world. There is also an online test to see how much you know.
A website designed to strengthen awareness and understanding of what digital citizenship is. It encourages users of technology to be and become responsible DIGItal citiZENS.
eSafety Advice for Parents
The internet and related technologies, including mobile phones, games consoles and social networks are becoming increasingly important in the daily lives of our children and have many positive benefits. They can be used both educationally and socially and are becoming part of a child’s identity. Socially our children often use the internet for entertainment, interaction, and communication with ‘friends’. Access to the internet can take place anywhere and at any time so we need to make sure our children are able to use the internet safely. Many children are unaware of the risks – for example by having many online friends (who could be strangers), uploading inappropriate images, viewing unsuitable content or sharing too much personal information.
Information about setting up filtering in your own home can be found below. Some of the advice about online safety is common sense but it’s also important that parents and carers know how to use the technology and are aware of how their children are using the internet.
Information about online safety issues and how to ‘Stay Safe’ can be found on the websites below. This is just a sample of websites that can provide parents with support and information. Once parents and carers have the background knowledge and understanding of eSafety, they can decide what is right for their family.
Please remember to tell your child that if they tell you about getting into trouble online, you will be very proud of them – and that you won’t take their device off them. This will ensure that they come back to tell you if they are ever in trouble. You may of course want to check the settings on their device so that you can make it safer for them – but try to resist the temptation to take it off them permanently.
Mind the Gap Conversation Starter Kit – Questions you may want to ask your children and use as a way of starting a conversation about internet use and staying safe online.
Mind the Gap Conversation Starter Kit
Questions you may want to ask your children, and use as a way of starting a conversation about internet use and staying safe online.
What do you like to do most online?
Do you play online games with friends you know in the real world, or do you play with
anyone?
What do you write on your Moshi Monsters pinboard?
Who can see your pinboard?
Do you tell your online friends your secrets or things you wouldn’t tell them in the playground?
What is the age rating of the game you are playing?
Can I play/watch the game with you?
The minimum age to be able to open an account on Facebook, Instagram and many other social networks is 13 years. Ask your child/ren what age they pretended to be and why?
Do you know your online friends in the real world? Are you always nice to your online friends?
If someone online says or does something to frighten or upset you would you know what to do?
Would you let a stranger in the street ask you personal questions in the real world? Do you let a stranger online ask you personal questions? If yes, is it time to change?
Can you show me how to change Facebook privacy settings? Are your settings as private as possible?
Has anyone ever said something nasty to you online? Were you frightened or scared? Would you know what to do?
Do you know or can you show me how to report nasty comments, images and videos on (Moshi Monsters/ Instagram / Facebook and so on). Are you aware that you can usually do this anonymously?
Once online – always online. Ask your child/ren if they are happy for those comments, images, videos to be online forever?
This online content could have a long term negative impact such as not getting a job interview or generally being unhappy about what was said and done several months/ years ago.
Here are some things you may want to do to help your child/ren ‘Stay Safe’ in the online world
Set ground rules and with younger children agree which websites they can visit. Remember these will vary depending upon the ages of your child/ren.
Agree time limits and regular breaks. Remember letting children play video games just before bedtime may stop them sleeping well and have an impact on their learning.
Find out how to set the parental controls and safe search. Contact your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to see what controls they may offer as part of the service. Remember none of these are 100% effective and supervision is always advised.
Check the home page of your child/ren’s favourite social network, game and so on. Is there a section with information for parents? This will give you an overview of the website and its suitability.
Spend 30 minutes watching your child/ren play an online game so that you can see the content and be happy that it is suitable for them.
Check the age ratings of games at PEGI Remember video games ratings are all about the content and not the difficulty of the game.
Say NO to your child playing any game that has a rating of 18 years and above or using websites that you think are unsuitable.
Talk you child/ren about their privacy settings and ask them to show you how to change these settings. Encourage your child/ren to only have online friends that know in the real world.
Tell your child/ren what to do if they ever feel frightened or scared when online or using their mobile phone. It is important that your child/ren know they can always talk to you and you will help them ( you may not know the answer but by talking to the school, other parents, ThinkUknow FAQs, mobile phone provider and so on you will be able to find a solution.)
