Parent, Carer and Pupil Online Safety Information
Whatever your age or ability, using the internet can be a fun and useful tool in learning today, but it's not without its pitfalls or dangers. At Patcham Infant school we keep up to date with the latest information and technologies to make sure your children are safe while at school.
Online Safety encompasses many aspects of using the internet on a range of devices including computers, tablets and mobile phones. Information entered into a website or search engine today, may be stored, indexed or even sold to third parties for years to come.
Developing and keeping up to date with your Online Safety knowledge need not be a daunting experience. There are videos, blogs and websites dedicated to Online Safety to help and guide you.
This page is designed to help you and your children to become safe online and help find relative and up to date information. Please bare in mind that we have no control over page content on other websites or links, as these may change over time.
Parental Controls
Safety Net recommends that parents take five steps to keep their children safer online.
- Understand how to set limits from your internet service provider (SKY, TALKTALK, Virgin, BT)
- Put restrictions on devices. (iPad, mobiles, Xbox etc.)
- Set safe search on google and YouTube (turn off auto play)
- Have a plan for when things go wrong.
- Most importantly - keep involved in your child's online life
These steps are not easy to do, the links below will help. Sometimes these steps make the internet too restricted and you might need to remove or set time limits. The technologies in this area are changing all the time.
Use Internet Matters: https://www.internetmatters.org/parental-controls
Useful links:
ThinkUKnow: https://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/parents/
Parentzone Screen Time: https://www.parents.parentzone.org.uk/morearticles/screen-time-everything-you-need-to-know
Creating Family Media Policy: https://www.healthychildren.org/English/media/Pages/default.aspx
Childrens Commissioner: https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/report/talking-to-your-child-about-online-sexual-harassment-a-guide-for-parents/
Online Safety
Whatever you do online, these sites help you to know how to stay safe whilst using the internet.
Appropriate Apps, Games and Websites
Checking the age appropriateness of apps, games and websites is extremely important. Simply type the name of the app, game or website into the search bar of the site listed below to instantly find out if it is appropriate for your child to access.
Child Exploitation and Online Protection
If you see something online that should not be there and want to report it, then use the following links:
TikTok
What age is TikTok recommended for?
Common Sense recommends the app for age 15+ mainly due to the privacy issues and mature content. TikTok requires that users be at least 13 years old to use the full TikTok experience.
It is worth considering that TikTok's predecessor, Musical.ly. in 2019, settled with the Federal Trade Commission for child privacy violations.
Safer Searching
We all use search engines to find things on the internet. 'Google' and 'Yahoo' both have child friendly versions that filter the results you receive, but how you search makes a difference aswell. Check out the 'kidsmart' site for more information.
- Yahoo! Kids: www.kids.yahoo.com
- CBBC Search: www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/search
- Zoo Search: www.zoo.com
- Kiddle: www.kiddle.co
#WakeUpWednesday
The National Online Safety Team have developed a #WakeUpWednesday campaign. Each week they create a free guide for parents/carers to share information about dangers and risks of online games and how to keep their children safe online.
This free guide for parents/carers can be viewed by clicking here: https://twitter.com/natonlinesafety/status/101199266300296396
