Staying Safe Online in 2024
Latest Online Safety News:
Welcome to St Mary's Online Safety Page and resource for links and guidance in how to update yourself as parents and guardians and support your children in staying safe and enjoying and benefiting from the experience online.
- This week, 16/09/24 children in Year 6 began to lead the focus on Online Safety and how to stay safe online that takes place at the beginning of each year. Check out the newsletter below for details of coming events open to you and your child celebrating E Safety.
- Safer Internet Day was celebrated across the school with the Online Safety Committee leading lessons and activities in all year groups focusing on general safety online and promoting the message to talk and share about our experiences online with our parents so we can all support eachother to stay safe. Following the theme "Inspiring Change", children took part in activities which improved their knowledge of how to use the internet effectively such as how to recognise secure websites, to check the reliability of sources of information and even discussed and learned about the benefits and dangers of AI with the Year 5s learning about how to use ChatGBT as an effective support tool in their learning, but not there only source of information.
- The Online Safety Committee launched their own Newsletter - a monthly event- to keep everyone up to date with the latest Online Safety news. This first issue launched the Online Safety Poster Competition with great prizes to be won !
- Check out the updates and information at the bottom of this page to find out about this year's theme and focus for Safer Internet Day on the 6th of February 2024. See below for a copy of this newsletter.
- Who are Internet Matters? How can they help me and my family?Internet Matters provide amazing and up to date support and advice to adults and children about staying safe online. Internet Matters is a not-for-profit organisation based in London, England. Launched in May 2014 by the United Kingdom's largest internet service providers BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media, the organisation offers child internet safety advice to parents, carers and professionals. Click on the link below to access this excellent website. https://www.internetmatters.org/issues/
- Worried about TikTok and want some quick advice - click on this link to Internet Matters for excellent guidance: https://www.internetmatters.org/?s=TikTok
- Heard alarming discussions about the children's favourite site Roblox- click this link for excellent guidance and find out how to enjoy this site safely. https://www.internetmatters.org/?s=Roblox
Resources and Links for Children
E-Safety in the Community and Classroom
Teaching and discussion about how to stay safe online has taken on an even greater importance as technology becomes such an essential part of our every day lives, both in work, education, leisure and in our communication and interaction with the world around us.
The opportunities for education, development and innovation offered by new technology is exciting and our children and us as adults need to be familiar, aware and alert to the uses of technology if we are to be prepared to live well in the world of today and the world of the future.
Despite the great opportunities offered by new technology and online services, there are dangers, (both obvious and subtle) which adults and children need to be aware of in order to stay safe onlin. Adults and children need to also learn how to successfully manage issues when things go wrong.
Using the principles of the document "Education in a Connected World 2020" as a guide to the cross curricular teaching of Online Safety, the school aims to to make parents and children aware that the benefits of using online technology outstrip the dangers and that we can learn how to stay safer online and be ready to manage situations effectively when and if something goes wrong.
At St Mary's, we believe that Learning about e-safety is a vital life skill. Empowering children at an early age with the knowledge to safeguard themselves and their personal information is something that needs to be nurtured throughout school to see them into adult life. We have embedded e-safety into our curriculum and below you can see information about this year's Safer Internet day Focus.
It’s never too early or too late to start an online safety conversation and keep it going. Internet Matters is an amazing website that supports organsisations, parents and children in online safety. Have a look at the top tips presented by them to open up converstaions between parents and children about being online. There is a link below where you can also print this out as a PDF and pin it to your fridge for frequent reference or you can read it off this webpage. Bad things usually happen where there is secrecy or people feel isolated - so if you shine a light on issues and people feel free to talk and learn from each other we can help each other stay safe online. Please look at the tips and tools below to support your child’s digital journey
St Mary's Catholic Primary School Online Safety related documentation
Please find below the schools Online Safety related documentation.