Gardners Lane Primary School

E-Safety is an important part of keeping children safe at Gardners Lane Primary School . We have extensive security measures in place in school, which are monitored both internally and externally, to help safeguard pupils from potential dangers or unsuitable material. Any E-Safety incidents are recorded and managed in accordance with  our E-Safety Policy. E-Safety is taught to all pupils explaining and demonstrating how to stay safe and behave appropriately online.

We can only be successful in keeping children safe online if we work with parents to ensure the e-Safety message is consistent.

It is important that parents speak to and monitor their children about how they can keep safe and behave appropriately online. PWe would urge parents to share the school weekly E-Safety newsletters.

It’s essential to be realistic - banning the internet or technology will not work and it often makes a child less likely to report a problem. Education around safe use is essential.

Search engines

Please note that no search engine is ever 100% safe but below provides some links to some “safer” search engines:

Research searching

CBBC
Kids Yahoo

Swiggle

Google offers a safer search option for children searching on the Internet. Click here to read more.

Image searching

Pics4Learning
picsearch

Gaming

When children are accessing games via Xbox LIVE, privacy settings can be set up. To read more, click here.

Websites for more information

CEOP (The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre) delivers a multi-agency service dedicated to tackling the abuse and exploitation of children in the real and ‘e’ world. Often it is referred to as an online 999. By clicking on the button, young people and parents can get advice on a range of issues such as viruses, hacking and dealing with bullying online.

The “Thinkuknow” website is brought to you by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) centre.

The past year has brought so many significant changes to the way we live our lives. Online learning, working from home and the accompanying challenges of online meetings have impacted on many of us.

Like their parents and carers, many primary school age children have increased their time on the internet. Which in itself has posed increased challenges for digital parenting.

Throughout this challenging time Schoolbeat Officers and Police Community Support Officers have worked closely with Head teachers to provide advice and guidance to primary school pupils on how to stay safe online.

What has become clear to Schoolbeat Officers is that more and more primary school children are highlighting their use of social media, in particular TikTok.

Like many other social media platforms, TikTok has an age restriction of 13 years old.

Whilst TikTok can be very appealing to younger audiences, many parents and carers are reminding their children that they need to be 13 before having the app.

Some parents and children have reported inappropriate content on the app, others have raised concerns about the risks linked to the messaging function and children keeping profiles open in order to get more comments and shares.

The online world can be an exciting place for children, however, it is not without its risks. It is important that children follow cyber safety advice and utilise age appropriate apps and games, this way we can reduce those risks and make their online experience as safe and fun as it should be.  

It’s great to take an active interest in your child’s life online and we’d encourage you to talk openly with them about the things they do. Remember, the internet is an essential part of young people’s lives and provides them with tremendous opportunities.

Information for parents and carers on online safety advice and resources can be found on the below sites.

The NSPCC’s online Net Aware service provides expert reviews and safety advice on all of the most popular social networks, apps and games young people are using;

www.net-aware.org.uk

CEOP’s ThinkUKnowwebsite contains resources and advice tailored by age, as well as specific tools for parents and professionals;

www.thinkuknow.co.uk

Also, below is the link to a Panorama episode which looked into how safe TikTok really is;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000p3p9/panorama-is-tiktok-safe