The Internet has become part of our everyday lives – children and adults alike are able to access the Internet far easier than before due to wireless devices such as phones and games consoles. Whilst the Internet can be educational and fun, and a way of communicating with others, using the Internet can also have risks.
Children and young people are more at risk of exposure to inappropriate or criminal behaviour if they are unaware of the dangers. These dangers can include:
- viewing unsuitable content e.g. hate material, adult content, sites that promote unhealthy behaviour
- giving out personal information
- arranging to meet an online ‘friend’
- becoming involved in, or the victim of, bullying, identity theft, or making and sending indecent or illegal images
- spending too much time online which can effect concentration, education, sleep and health
- copying information from the Internet or buying work from other people to use as their own.
Digital Literacy (including Online Safety) Curriculum
Online safety awareness is an important part of our computing and wider curriculum at Roseberry. As well as our annual Internet Safety themed day, we plan and teach lessons that promote the knowledge, skills and experience that children need in order to keep themselves safe online. For more information about our Digital Literacy Curriculum, please see our Curriculum page.
Are your children using the Internet safely?
Click here to access the recommendations made by Cleveland Police
Tips and advice on keeping your child safe online
- Help your children to understand that they should never give out personal details to ‘online friends’ they do not know offline.
- Explain to your children what information about them is personal: i.e. email address, mobile number, school name, sports club, arrangements for meeting up with friends and any pictures or videos of themselves, their family or friends. Small pieces of information can easily be pieced together to form a comprehensive insight in to their lives and daily activities.
- Make your children aware that they need to think carefully about the information and pictures they post on their profiles. Inform them that once published online, anyone can change or share these images of them and that certain companies, such as Instagram, have instant copyright rights to uploaded pictures.
- It can be easy to forget that the internet is not a private space, and as result, sometimes young people engage in risky behaviour online. Advise your children not to post any pictures, videos or information on their profiles, or in chat rooms, that they would not want a parent or carer to see.
- If your child receives spam or junk email and texts, remind them never to believe their contents, reply to them or use them.
- It’s not a good idea for your child to open files that are from people they don’t know. They won’t know what they contain—it could be a virus, or worse – an inappropriate image or film.
- Help your child to understand that some people lie online and that therefore it’s better to keep online friends online. They should never meet up with any strangers without an adult they trust.
- Always keep communication open for a child to know that it’s never too late to tell someone if something makes them feel uncomfortable.
- Discuss how search engines can give results based upon popularity, advertisements and the number of links it has to other websites. Discuss alternative search engines they can use aside from Google.
- Spend time discussing Social Networking sites. They have age restrictions as the content on them is only suitable for young adults above the age that is specified – in the case of Facebook, over the age of 13. Although Facebook removes harmful or offensive material, it is only done when it is reported. The grooming of children via social networking is a very real danger if your child is allowed unrestricted or unsupervised access to a teenage or adult resource.
- Think carefully about the images and information that you post about your child on your own social media, e.g. names of the school or clubs that they attend, photographs of them in uniform etc. as this can easily be pieced together to form a comprehensive insight in to their lives and daily activities.
For further information on Internet and online safety, you may find the following websites helpful:
https://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/keeping-children-safe/online-safety/
Child Friendly Internet Recommendations
Filter your Search Engine – most major search engines offer the ability to filter the results to keep out material that you would not want your children to Below are some tips on enabling child safe filtering in major search engines:
- Google: Go to the Google Home Page, select Preferences (on the right of the search box) and in the SafeSearch Filtering section select the option for
- ‘Use strict filtering (Filter both explicit text and explicit images)’.
- MSN Search: Use the Safe Search Filter on the Settings page.
- Yahoo: Set the SafeSearch Filter option via the Search Preferences page.
- AltaVista: Use the Family Filter Setup page.
- AOL Search: Doesn’t appear to offer a filter, but enabling Parental
- Controls might have an impact on web search matches.
- Ask Jeeves: Use options for Content Filtering on the Your Settings page or try Ask For Kids.
- Lycos: Use the Adult Filter section of the Advanced Search Filters page.
Add Parental Controls using Filtering and Blocking Software – parental controls can be accessed through your internet security package (E.g. Norton, McAfee or such like) or purchased as filtering software (E.g. Cyber Patrol and Net Nanny).
We encourage all parents to set up Internet filtering on any computer, device or smartphone which your children have access to. To learn how to do this for the major providers of internet, please click the text below.
https://www.saferinternet.org.uk/advice-and-resources/parents-and-carers/parental-controls
Use a child Friendly search Engine
KidsClick! – www.kidsclick.org
Yahoo Kids! – www.kids.yahoo.com
Ask Jeeves For Kids – www.askkids.com
Being safe on a mobile phone – mobile phones are a great way for parents to stay in touch with their children, wherever they are. Additionally, mobile phone technology has come on in leaps and bounds in recent years with internet access, instant messaging and multimedia texting all available to a young audience. These developments have also come with their criticism as some worry that children will have access to inappropriate content and be at risk of being contacted by inappropriate parties.
Most network providers provide Parental Content Control. Simply call your provider and discuss the age limit (e.g. Tesco mobile can provide Under 12 limits) and they will apply it to the specified mobile. It is also important to remember that children will still be able to access inappropriate content if it is sent to them by a friend or other mobile users and the network will be unable to filter it.
To avoid theft, talk to your child, let them know the risks about using a phone or leaving it in an unsecured location and explain that using a phone whilst alone on the street will leave them extremely vulnerable to criminal activity. Making your child aware of the risks is the best way to prevent crime, but you can also register your child`s phone with the police so that in the event of a theft it can be identified and recovered, where possible. There are also apps available from App stores such as ‘Find my Phone’ where you can disable your device should it be lost/stolen.
Tips for Parents
Here are some websites about being safe when using the internet…
For videos and resources aimed at children aged 5 to 7, click the image above.
For videos and resources aimed at children aged 8 to 10, click the image above.
For resources for parents/carers, click the image above.
To access resources from Cbeebies, click the image above
‘Kids Smart’ has a wealth of resources aimed at both parents and children.
Access any of these links by clicking on the images, below:
The Adventures of Kara, Winston and the Smart Crew