The Internet

The internet is an amazing place but, due to the infinite possibilities available online, it can also be a dangerous place.  At Moggerhanger Primary School we strive to teach the children how to benefit from online spaces, whilst also being aware of, and protecting themselves from, the potential threats they may encounter.

 

Ambient Technology

Ambient technology is all around us.  Ambient technology refers to electronic devices or environments that are sensitive to the presence of people within the environments; they can respond to this presence and to human signals (verbal, motion, etc.), and are able to interact with the humans.  Examples of these include Amazon Alexa, voice-controlled apps, streaming services, or gaming devices.  While there are laws and in place and new legislation being written to protect children against online dangers (such as age restrictions on social media accounts), those laws can quickly become outdated and ineffective at safeguarding children online.  Due to advances in technology, the ambient technology around us means that children today are exposed to the online world earlier than they have been in the past.

 

Children’s Devices

It is reported that 17% of children aged 3-4 have their own mobile phones, and 89% have access to video sharing platforms.  Within this age group, parents/guardians reported that 24% have their own social media profile.  In 5-7 year olds, these statistics rise to 28% having their own mobile phone, and 93% of those children having access to video sharing platforms (Ofcom Children and parents: media use and attitudes report 2022).   While accessing online spaces can be a phenomenal resource for young people, it also means that safeguards in place such as ‘Stop, Block, Report’ are no longer effective, as the children are too young to understand and access these protections.

 

Children of all ages, their teachers and their parents/guardians do not need to be experts in all forms of technology, but they must be confident in online safety in order to support and protect children from the potential dangers they are faced with online.

 

Teachers at Moggerhanger Primary School teach online safety regularly and integrate the importance of staying safe online when using any technology in school.  To further this, we have included some resources below that can be accessed by parents/guardians and shared with children in order to improve confidence in digital literacy and online safety as well as highlight the importance of staying safe online at home as well as in school.

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• https://www.childnet.com/

This contains a plethora of resources when navigating online safety with young people.  The help and advice section (https://www.childnet.com/help-and-advice)  provides specific examples of online threats and how to manage them, both in the form of information for parents/guardians and examples to share with children.

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•  https://beinternetawesome.withgoogle.com/en_us/interland

Interland is a free, web-based game designed to help children learn five foundational lessons across four different mini-games, or ‘lands.’  Children are invited to play their way to Internet Awesome in a quest to deny hackers, sink phishers, one-up cyberbullies, outsmart oversharers and become safe, confident explorers of the online world.  The four lands and their key learning objectives are: Reality River - Don’t Fall for Fake, Mindful Mountain - Share with Care, Kind Kingdom - It’s Cool to be Kind and Tower of Treasure - Secure your secrets. (Be Internet Awesome, Google)

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•  https://saferinternet.org.uk/

The safer internet centre provides a range of advice for parents/guardians to allow them to discuss online safety with their children, with guides and FAQs (https://saferinternet.org.uk/guide-and-resource/parents-and-carers) for safely exploring different types of technology.

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•  https://www.internetmatters.org/

This contains resources for parents/guardians to help keep their children safe online.

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•  https://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/parents/

Contains a wealth of information about online safety, the home activity sheets https://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/parents/home-activity-worksheets/ provide some nice activities for parents/guardians to do with children ensuring that both parents/guardians and children understand and have minimised risks in areas of the internet most used by young people, such as online gaming and watching videos online.

 

If you have any queries about our computing curriculum or online safety, please do not hesitate to get in touch with Miss Hinson, our Computing Coordinator, via Class Dojo or by emailing office@moggerhangerprimary.co.uk