Blog – Latest stories tagged 'child_protection'

It was widely reported yesterday that the government have stated that the ‘draft curriculum for primary schools in England will, for the first time, include lessons on how to stay safe online.’ This announcement comes amid fresh concerns that explicit online materials are too easily accessible for young children.

Lucy Emmerson, co-ordinator of The Sex Education Forum, told BBC Radio 5 Live’s Breakfast that young people should become able to be critical consumers of media. They should learn what is appropriate and inappropriate for themselves and be very clear about what’s legal, illegal, violent and not violent. ‘Young people are quite confused about what consent is, and about what consent isn’t.’

In April, The Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) passed a resolution that schools must give lessons on the dangers of pornography. And now, just weeks later, The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) found in a survey that 40% of parents think schools should teach pupils as young as five about the dangers of pornography on the internet.

The NAHT said the issue was troubling to teachers as they grapple with the impact of pornography on pupils' self-image and perceptions of sexuality. Russell Hobby, general secretary of NAHT, stressed that: ‘young people need to know how to cope with and avoid the distorted views of relationships that are displayed in pornography.’

Ofsted have also decided that secondary school pupils need more education on the subjects of pornography, relationships, sexuality and staying safe. They suggested that many schools were failing to give pupils enough information regarding sex and relationships, which could leave children open to inappropriate behavior or exploitation.

This controversial topic is never far from the news and very often divides opinion of who should be responsible for the welfare of our children when they are online – is it the parents or schools who should take the lead? In our opinion, it’s both. But what we mustn’t forget is that e-safety is not just about stumbling across an inappropriate website or finding an unsuitable video on YouTube, it’s much more than that. Ultimately, we must teach our children how to act responsibly and safely online as we would in any other situation.

Teachers need to become experts in offering age-appropriate advice and guidance to their classes, and parents, with regard to the following areas:

• Unwanted internet contact


• Inappropriate internet content


• Privacy


• Mobile phones and devices

In the case of privacy, teachers need to be aware of:

• How to ensure social networking content stays private and doesn’t end up in search results years later.


• How to ensure passwords are strong, password-protected information, such as banking details or parental online shopping details remain safe.


• How to prevent and deal with junk mail and spam, and also how to spot internet scams and ‘phishing’ emails and messages.


• How websites store and track data which might be used for valid marketing reasons, or abused to create spam or facilitate identity theft.

For advice in the other 3 areas download this term's report What every teacher needs to know about E-safety, available free to Bronze members.

We all know internet safety is important and that schools have a responsibility to bestow knowledge upon students of how to interact safely as consumers of online media. But how do we get parents engaged? Sure, we can ‘train’ children in safety procedures in-school and ensure there are layers of security protection available within the school microcosm…but what happens outside of school, where there are no limitations? Is it appropriate to simply block, filter and ignore? Is that all schools need to do? Just hope that at home or in the park on their mobile children don’t inadvertently step into muddy waters? Education isn’t about limitations; it’s about enabling free and equal access to the world, virtual or real.

At Priory School we invite parents into school for online safety training if desired, but our key method of sharing internet safety information with parents is our website and social media. Below is an image from our website containing lots of useful information for parents around online safety. There are specific links to The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) information and Parent Port. Links to these sources of useful information are tweeted out and appear on our Facebook page. If we are aiming to encourage safe practice of online learning, what better way than to actually use the social media we are talking about?