Internet Safety
Safer Internet Day 2022 will be celebrated on 8th February with the theme ‘All fun and games? Exploring respect and relationships online’.
Internet Safety in School and At Home
In school, the London Grid for Learning also provides for a safe and secure online environment, but many parents and carers often seek advice on how they can help their children to 'Stay Safe' online outside of school. These websites provide comprehensive information about online safety and once parents and carers have a wider knowledge and understanding of the issues they can decide what is right for their family. At Longshaw, the children are regularly taught about staying safe online – including when using mobile devices.
The internet is an exciting and fun place for adults and children to use and explore educationally and socially. The challenge for parents, carers and teachers is to make sure that our children are aware of and understand how to be safe when using the internet and related technologies.
The following websites may be beneficial for parents to look at and can be found by clicking the link below:
https://ceop.police.uk/ CEOPS - Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre - Internet Safety
http://parentinfo.org/ This website was developed out of a partnership between CEOP and The Parent Zone and contains lots of good Online Safety advice.
http://www.saferinternet.org.uk/ Here you will find Online Safety tips, advice and resources to help children and young people stay safe on the internet.
http://www.childnet.com/ An organisation working directly with children, parents and teachers to ensure that the issues of online child protection and the safe and positive use of the internet are addressed.
http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/ The Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre has set up its own website which has been designed and written specifically for children, young people, teachers, parents and carers.
http://www.internetmatters.org/ Specific help on how to set up internet controls at home. Guidance and articles for parents about keeping children safe online.
Here are some tips from Google on how to stay safe on the internet:
Keep computers in a central place. This will make it easier to keep an eye on your children’s activities.
Know where your children go online. If you have young children, you might use the Internet with them. For older children, you could talk about what kinds of site they like to visit and what isn’t appropriate for your family. You can also check where your kids have 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 or your children share personal information such as names, addresses or phone numbers on public sites. Teach your children to respect the privacy of friends and family by not identifying people by name in public profiles and pictures.
Protect passwords. Remind your children not to give out their passwords. Make sure that 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 children 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 to prevent viruses. Use anti-virus software and update it regularly. Make sure that your children avoid 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, email 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 that it’s true. Children should learn how to distinguish reliable sources from unreliable ones and how to verify information that they find online. Make sure that kids understand that cutting and pasting content directly from a website may be plagiarism.
Other Useful Links:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/topics/stay-safe
http://www.whoishostingthis.com/resources/e-safety/