Keeping Your Child Safe Online

Our Lady of Grace Junior School staff are committed to helping parents keep their children safe when using technology. In school we monitor the devices, filter the content and use technology to teach and learn in a safe way.  The same kinds of monitoring and filtering can be achieved at home too. However, the increase in mobile technology and apps is causing issues for a small number of children. 

The guides below are designed to support you in understanding the apps and games that your children are telling us they use. We hope you can use them to help protect your child and consider just how appropriate these apps are for your family.   

Updated parental guidance leaflets are found at the bottom of this page. 

ONLINE SAFETY PARENT WORKSHOP (31/1/24)

Last night, we held a parent workshop about online safety.  It was run by the NSPCC.  If you were not able to attend in person you can watch a pre recorded version of the workshop by clicking on the video a little further down the page. 

The workshop covered a number of useful and current topics including ways to keep your child safe when they are gaming, using social media and other apps. 

Here are some other useful links that were mentioned in the workshop for your reference:

NSPCC Online Safety: Keeping children safe online | NSPCC

NSPCC Online Safety SEND Children: Online safety for children with SEND | NSPCC

Childline Online Safety: Staying safe online | Childline

Common Sense Media: Common Sense Media: Age-Based Media Reviews for Families | Common Sense Media

NSPCC Helpline: 0808 800 500

Childline: 0800 1111

Reporting Grooming

Reporting concerns: Report to CEOP

Reporting indecent images and videos of children shared online: IWF

Children can report nude images or videos of themselves to be taken down from the internet using the IWF and Childline Report Remove Tool

If a child is in immediate risk of harm then call 999

For more information visit: CEOP Education (thinkuknow.co.uk)

 November 2022

Dear Parents, 

The online world is posing an ever-increasing risk to children and it is important that schools, parents and carers work together to take an active role in teaching children about online dangers. Learning how to act safely when using the internet is an extremely important part of safeguarding your children and it is important that you, as their parents and carers, are involved too.

It is very important that you understand what your child is doing online.  We would ask that you talk to your child about apps that they are using and that you regularly check their phones/tablets to make sure that they are not using apps that are not appropriate for them.   

As part of our commitment to supporting parents/carers to protect their children online, we are now subscribing to the National Online Safety resource which provides videos and guides on a huge range of topics including: social media platforms, online bullying, online relationships, online grooming, screen addiction, age inappropriate content and fake news. 

We are asking all parents to create an account with National Online Safety to access all the resources.  This can be done by clicking this link https://nationalonlinesafety.com/enrol/our-lady-of-grace-rc-junior-school and completing your details. When you’re set up, you’ll be able to set ‘Parent/Carer’ as your user type.    

There is also a National Online Safety smartphone app. To download the app, please go to:  

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/national-online-safety/id1530342372  

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.nationaleducationgroup.nos  

We hope that by working together we can continue to educate the children in how to keep safe in the online world. 

Yours sincerely, 

Mrs N. Hart 

Safeguarding and Inclusion Leader 

Remember that it is very important to chat with your children on an ongoing basis about staying safe online.

If you’re not sure where to begin, these conversation starter suggestions can help.

· Ask your children to tell you about the sites they like to visit and what they enjoy doing online.

· Ask them about how they stay safe online. What tips do they have for you, and where did they learn them? What is OK and not OK to share?

· Ask them if they know where to go for help, where to find the safety advice, privacy settings and how to report or block on the services they use.

· Encourage them to help someone! Perhaps they can show you how to do something better online or they might have a friend who would benefit from their help and support.

· Think about how you each use the internet. What more could you do to use the internet together? Are there activities that you could enjoy as a family?

Keeping the dialogue open with your children is crucial so that if they do see something upsetting online that they will be able to talk to you about it both at this age and as they get older.

Guidance for Online Safety

Social networking sites such as Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter are very popular with young people (even those of primary age) as they allow young people to be creative online and keep in touch with their friends.

However, these sites stipulate a minimum user age of 13 as they are not suitable for children below that age.  Please see further information and guidance in the leaflet below about young people and social networking.