Keeping your child safe online
General app information:
WhatsApp offers a quick, easy, and free way for young people to connect with friends and family, whether by sharing photos, videos or memes. WhatsApp requires a minimum age of 16 but relies on the honesty of the child and family to adhere to the age restrictions. Registering an account on behalf of someone who is underage is also a violation of their terms.
TikTok is a video-sharing platform where you can watch and create videos, and livestream. The app has an agerating of 13+.
Instragram: Knowing people's age allows them to provide appropriate experiences to different age groups, specifically teens. They require people to be at least 13 years old to sign up for Instagram.
Snapchat: The platform is rated 13+. How does Snapchat work? The platform mainly operates as a messaging app where users can communicate with each other using videos and images. However, there are also other features available including private chat, games, and voice notes. In 2020, Snapchat had an average of 218 million daily active users that generated over three billion snaps a day.
Bereal: Bereal is a social media notifying you at a random moment every day to take a photo within 2 minutes, meaning that you cannot edit or filter photos but you can only post photos from camera at the moment you got notified. BeReal is open to users over the age of 13 only. If you are under 13, you are not allowed to create a User Account and use the Application.
For more information about any of these sites or for social media guides, please click on the link below.
https://saferinternet.org.uk/guide-and-resource/social-media-guides
Digital parenting - a guide provided by vodaphone which deals with a variety of areas of digital safety - for parents
Our online safety curriculum content:
Purple Mash:
We are excited to introduce a new online platform addition to our school’s computing provision. As children spend an increased amount of time online, we felt it necessary to take further steps to ensure their online safety and help them navigate the ever-changing digital world. Purple mash is a safe and age-appropriate online platform where all children can use the built in interactive tools at home and in the classroom to develop their awareness of being safe online.
The online safety lesson that are delivered by teachers aim to support your children in all aspects of their digital world which makes online safety a compulsory element in primary school teaching. Children work their way through the different units of work each year and build on their knowledge as they progress through the school.
This includes:
● How to communicate appropriately using technology
● The importance of time on and off screens
● How to learn effectively, using the Internet
● To make intelligent choices about what they do online
● The importance of respectful online dialogue
● To use privacy settings to stay safe online
Your children are being taught how to live with and live through technology in order to be safe and thrive online.
UKCIS Safety Aims
Why Choose This Journey?
We find ourselves in a world where information drives society and for many media businesses, it’s a valuable commodity. In the centuries before us it was coal; iron; cotton; oil: now its data.
Navigating this complex landscape is difficult at best. Many of us find our way through this tangle of information through trial and error; forging our own unique path and learning as we go. However, as we have seen only too often, some of those “errors” have the potential to lead to harm.
It’s no accident, then, that Media Literacy; Digital Literacy and Citizenship are a key element of the UK government’s “Online Harms” white paper. Amongst a raft of other regulatory measures, Media Literacy education threads itself through the whole strategy.
But what does good digital literacy education look like? How do we craft something that not only is relevant but achieves positive and realistic outcomes?
Over a decade ago, there was no Snapchat; no TikTok; no 5G; no Cambridge Analytica and whilst the landscape doesn’t hinge on one development, the interplay of all of these technologies changed attitudes, behaviours and priorities.
Who’d have thought we would be worrying about fake news across the whole media landscape or who we could trust eight years ago? Ransomware hadn’t raised its ugly head and the prospect of “deep fakes” hadn’t emerged. Gaming had not yet experienced the online ascendancy of GTA V or Call of Duty and “Blue Whale” was still six years away.
Gradually, Digital Literacy became more difficult to update and less relevant with each passing month.
Time for a rethink.