How to Stay Safe Online this Summer

With the school summer holidays only a matter of days away, many parents and carers will already be planning outings and activities to keep their young ones entertained. In between those special summer moments, though, there are also likely to be occasions when children happily invest a whole afternoon in Among Us or spend most of their Monday on Minecraft.

As young people’s screen time almost inevitably increases over the holidays, parents like to feel confident that their child will stay safe while they’re exploring the digital world. So we’ve produced a #WakeUpWednesday poster with some simple solutions to help children avoid frequent online pitfalls and enjoy a more positive experience when they go online this summer.

Read on to access your free guide…National Online Safety

Recently there have been several incidents related to the misuse of WhatsApp groups. We would like to remind parents/carers and children that the minimum age for using WhatsApp is 16 or over.

WhatsApp is a chat application which can be used on a mobile phone or tablet, it lets you send messages, images and videos to friends. You can have one to one and group conversations.

We urge all parents/carers to keep an eye on their child’s mobile phone and/or online activities involving social media. The children are constantly reminded that they must tell a trusted adult if they receive anything inappropriate from any application.  This is linked to PSHE lessons on digital footprints and online safety.

I have attached a parent/carer WhatsApp guide below, in addition we regularly add online safety tips to our website: https://www.elvingtonprimary.org.uk/category/online-safety-for-families

If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact me…

Kind regards,Mr. Andrew Buttery, Headteacher

What Parents and Carers Need to Know about Anime

In this modern age, we’re privileged to be able to experience art from other cultures at the press of a button. A popular example of this is the Japanese animation style known as anime – a creative, unique style that you might recognise from classic 90s animations such as Ghost in the Shell. With recent releases like Cyberpunk: Edgerunners dominating online discussion for months, anime is bigger now than ever.

Although anime appeals to all generations in the West, its largest demographic by far is that of children and young people. However, as our #WakeUpWednesday guide explores, this doesn’t mean that all anime is age-appropriate, and parents and carers are heartily encouraged to make themselves aware of the kind of content their children could be exposed to.

Read on to access your free guide…National Online Safety

What Parents and Carers Need to Know about Influencers

Not only is an “influencer” an increasingly powerful role in the digital age, but it’s also become a desirable career goal for many young people – an enjoyable way to gain international fame and a gateway to financial success. A survey of Instagram influencers, for instance, found that those with over a million followers make an average of £12,000 (around $15,000) per month.

Much of this wealth, of course, is unlocked by entering into partnerships with various brands – which then raises all manner of questions about some influencers’ authenticity. Is their praise for certain products genuine, or simply because they’ve been paid for their endorsement? This week’s #WakeUpWednesday guide peels back the filters for a closer look at influencers.

Read on to access your free guide…National Online Safety

Looking after Your Wellbeing Online

Theoretically, digital technology and the online world should improve and simplify our lives – and, a lot of the time, they do. All too often, however, something we see or someone’s behaviour on the internet can cause distress or worry; especially for younger people, who may not yet have quite developed the resilience or emotional maturity to deal with such setbacks.

Indeed, some aspects of daily digital life can have a profoundly negative impact on how young people feel about themselves, their friendships and relationships, and the world in general. To coincide with Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK, today’s #WakeUpWednesday poster is a collection of quick but effective tips to help children prioritise their own wellbeing online.

Read on to access your free guide…National Online Safety

What Parents and Carers Need to Know about Telegram

Controversial changes to WhatsApp’s privacy policy back in 2021 was a major shot in the arm for Telegram, as millions of users began searching for a more secure messaging platform. Indeed, Telegram is so confident in its resistance to hacks that it’s previously set challenges (with a prize of up to $300,000) to any user who’s able to crack its encryption.

With protected ‘secret chats’ and self-deleting messages, however, Telegram’s security advantage has also been subverted by criminals using the app to trade stolen data, share child sexual exploitation material and arrange drug deals. As Telegram’s popularity continues to grow, our #WakeUpWednesday guide tells trusted adults what they need to be aware of.

Read on to access your free guide…National Online Safety

10 Top Tips for Safely Using Smartwatches

Health – our ability to monitor it, and motivation to improve it – is a major selling point for smartwatches. A recent survey found, for example, that smartwatch owners tend to exercise at least one day more every week than people who don’t have a smartwatch. It’s unlikely that the device causes this increase, but it almost unquestionably encourages the additional workouts.

Factor in the facility to store potentially life-saving medical information and to contact emergency services instantly, and it’s clear that smartwatches have plenty to recommend them. As our #WakeUpWednesday guide discovers, however, possible hazards including hidden costs and night-time use interfering with sleep mean that it’s not universally good news for parents.

Read on to access your free guide…National Online Safety

What Parents and Carers Need to Know about Wizz

In an age where empathy and understanding are more valuable than ever, apps like Wizz – which connect users with potential new friends – can be incredibly welcome. Pairing people with others who share their interests, the app can unite mutual fans of the same music, find fellow foodies to exchange recipes with or recruit new players for someone’s favourite online game.

Indeed, the app’s tagline promises to “expand your world”. Is that expansion totally safe, however? As this week’s #WakeUpWednesday guide finds out, Wizz’s age verification system isn’t infallible – so, with the possibility of young people being matched with much older users, trusted adults might want to familiarise themselves with how this trending app actually works.

Read on to access your free guide…National Online Safety

What Parents and Carers Need to Know about OFCOM’s Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes Report 2023

Did you know that a fifth of 3- and 4-year-olds in the UK have their own mobile phone? Or that one in five of the 8- to 17-year-olds who play online games chat to people they don’t know while they’re gaming? Those are just two of the surprising (and, for many, disconcerting) statistics highlighted by Ofcom’s recently published ‘Media Use and Attitudes’ report.

It’s well worth a read, but weighing in at 50 pages of fairly densely packed data, we appreciate that it’s the sort of thing parents and teachers might not always have time for. So our #WakeUpWednesday guide this week is an at-a-glance breakdown of some of the report’s headline findings, from device usage to online spending habits.

Read on to access your free guide…National Online Safety

Helping Children and Young People with Managing Device Stress and Anxiety

With smartphones, tablets, laptops and games consoles now the norm, it’s no surprise to learn that almost nine out of ten (89%, to be exact) 10 to 15-year-olds in the UK go online every day. What’s perhaps less expected, though, is that more than one in four (27%) say their parents or carers don’t talk to them much – or, in fact, at all – about what they actually do in the digital world.

This leaves many children feeling like they lack a source of emotional support if something online is causing them stress. As today’s #WakeUpWednesday guide discovers, maintaining a regular avenue of communication about our digital lives is just one step that trusted adults can take to help children feel more in control of how – and when – they use internet-enabled devices.

Read on to access your free guide…National Online Safety