Blog – Latest stories tagged 'e-safety'

E-safety charity, Childnet, announce winners of the Childnet Film Competition 2015 in association with PhonepayPlus - Winning films to be used as Internet safety resources for schools

UK children’s charity, Childnet International, announced the winners of their sixth annual film competition at a private screening held at the BFI Southbank earlier this week.

Judged by a panel of experts from the BBFC, BFI, PhonepayPlus and beauty vlogger, Lily Pebbles, the three winning schools and the six other finalists will now see their films used as Internet safety resources to educate other young people about how to use the Internet safely.

Children and Families Minister, Edward Timpson, said:

"The Internet is a tremendously powerful tool that is changing the way our children learn and stay in touch but we cannot afford to be complacent about the risks - the dangers of the virtual world are no less pressing than those in the real world.”

“And it’s through initiatives like the Childnet Film Competition that we can make sure children really harness all the opportunities that the Internet provides while at the same time giving them the information and tools they need to protect themselves online. Well done to all of those who have taken part.”

As Childnet Education Projects Officer, Becky Nancarrow, said:

“This year’s film competition has been truly inspiring! Today we were able to celebrate the achievements of the 9 finalists who have met the challenge set by the competition amazingly well, addressing many of the key issues young people face online in a fun, creative and positive way. But it doesn’t end there! Now the young people’s films will have an even wider impact, as the films become resources for schools and youth groups to use to educate young people about staying safe online”.

Founded in 2010 as a way of asking young people to focus on positive use of the Internet, the Childnet Film Competition invites schools and youth organisations from across the UK to capture their Internet safety messages in a short film. For 2015, secondary schools were given the opportunity to illustrate another part of their digital lives, as UK regulator PhonepayPlus teamed up with Childnet to introduce the PhoneBrain category.

With over 130 entries across the three categories, primary, secondary and PhoneBrain, 8 schools and 1 youth group attended the shortlisted event where there films were shown on the big screen.

Taking home the top prize of film equipment for their school was Ludworth Primary School winning the primary school entry with ‘Chips and Bangs’. Weavers Academy took home the top prize for their entry ‘We have a choice to make a better Internet’ in the secondary category and the PhoneBrain Category was won by Willow Bank School for their film ‘Mummy I wuv you’.

Martin Stamper from Ludworth Primary School said:

“As a school we loved the opportunity to give our children an outlet for their creativity which could possibly be seen on a nationwide level. We had no idea it would lead to the day we have just had. Thanks!”

Creator of the secondary school winning film from Weavers Academy, Keith, said:

“When I heard about the film competition, I saw it as an opportunity to do what I love. It was special to me because as someone who isn’t really keen on sports and a lot of after/outside of school activities it felt really good to be part of something big! Also, the fact that I’ve actually won 1st place makes every second I put into the making of the animation worth it.”

Steve Pepper from Willow Bank School said:

“The film competition was a great opportunity to get across an important message! Nobody realises how much more is being taken from the young and vulnerable – it’s great to get the word out.”

The winning films from the Childnet Film Competition can be viewed here

A reflection on recent statistics from Ofsted on e-safety education

I was thumbing through the TES the other day and I came across the headline ‘Online safety lessons failing to reach more than one-in-four secondary pupils, Ofsted warns’. The article reported on a presentation that Ofsted inspector David Brown had given at a summit on child Internet safety. Mr Brown had presented some research, gathered during inspections at 39 primary and 45 secondary schools.

The information revealed that even though 95 per cent of the schools had online safety policies, students within those schools were not always aware of the existence of these policies and furthermore it found that 27 per cent of the secondary school students could not recall whether they had been taught about online safety during the last 12 months. The research also stated that 28 per cent of secondary students said that they did not have confidence in their teachers’ understanding of online safety – a fact reinforced by teachers who said that they didn’t believe that they had received sufficient training focusing on online safety.

After reading the article I pondered about why there are significant hurdles in getting this serious message across to students. In my own experience as an ICT teacher, there appears to be wide variations in the levels of understanding of the issue and its associated facets, both within student community and more importantly within teachers.

One of the problems I believe is that in some schools, online safety is discussed in ICT lessons, where the teacher may only tackle the techincal issues and side-step the behavioural and emotional espects. Where in other schools, e-safety is handled in PSHCE lessons or during form time by non-technical teachers who, perhaps, lean towards the ‘technophobic’ and have a fear that their lack of understanding will make them appear foolish in front of their students should they start asking them probing more complex questions. This highlights the need for a truely cross-curricular attitude to e-safety education in schools to ensure students can understand the whole picture.

It could also be said that there is a part to play in this for parents/guardians and that is correct, however, sadly in the majority of cases the lack of understanding is also true but with the added problem that some parents appear to acquire their knowledge from emotive and misinformed articles within newspapers or on TV, where the purpose of the piece is to either sell the paper or gain viewing figures and not to offer parents properly researched and explained information.

It is one of the main reasons that I regularly browse sites like www.e-safetysupport.com as the technological world moves along at a great pace and, unfortunately, new online threats to the well-being of young people appear equally frequently – whether it is the latest online 'fad', ‘sexting’, ‘trolling’ or cyber self-harming. However with the knowledge provided by sites such as this one, teachers and parents can keep informed about the latest online spectre and feel more confident when they are talking about these issues with young people.

Within schools, Internet policies should be student-friendly and one of the best ways to ensure this is to involve students in their design, authoring and promotion. In David Brown’s presentation the research demonstrated that disappointingly, 76 per cent of the primary and secondary schools, within the study, said that students were not involved in the writing of the schools Internet policies. By involving the students, the policy’s importance and relevance to them is raised and they gain a certain ownership of the document.

Finally, it is unfortunate that even in this day and age, in some school settings, the importance of child online safety can suffer from a lacklustre enthusiasm and sadly it is only when an incident occurs involving one of their students (or indeed a member of staff) that it becomes enough of a priority to be taken seriously.

The Internet is a fantastic resource for learning and it is here to stay, but as in real-life, there are those who wish to act illegally and do evil and unpleasant things to others online; however, it is up to the responsible adults such as teachers and parents to bring to the attention of young people the seriousness of online safety but for that to happen those adults must arm themselves with high quality information and understanding.

To see the full presentation, click on the image


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