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Encourage pupils to 'Be the change: Unite for a better Internet with our Safer Internet Day Competition

The next ‘Safer Internet Day’ will be the fourteenth edition of the event and will take place worldwide on Tuesday 7th February 2017. The theme this year is:
'Be the Change: Unite for a better Internet'.

"The SID celebration sees hundreds of organisations unite to raise awareness of online safety issues and run events and activities right across the UK." - UK Safer Internet Centre

SID 2017 Competition

To celebrate the fantastic work being done through Safer Internet Day activities around the world, we are delighted to be running a competition for schools. To get involved, all your pupils have to do is come up with a positive e-safety acronym using the words CHANGE or UNITE - inspired by the SID2017 theme, Be the Change: Unite for a better Internet.

Here's an example:

Cyberbullying
Hurts:
Always
Nurture
Good
E-conduct.

To submit your school entries:

1) Submit your entries by email to competition@e-safetysupport.com clearly stating your school name and the category you are entering.
2) You can also Tweet your entries including the hashtag #esscomp from your school Twitter account.

Entry is open now and schools can enter as many tips as they wish. All entries must be received before midnight on February 6th 2017 to be included in the competition. Please see the competition terms here.

Winners

There will be 6 categories:

Best Primary School UNITE acronym

Best Primary School CHANGE acronym

Best Secondary School UNITE acronym

Best Secondary School CHANGE acronym

Best SEN School UNITE acronym

Best SEN School CHANGE acronym

Winners will be chosen and announced on Safer Internet Day. Winners will receive one years free Premium Plus membership to E-safety Support for their school.

After the winners have been chosen, we will turn the winning entries into some great e-safety posters which schools can download freely from the E-safety Support website.

It is widely considered that e-safety in schools is a technology issue and is therefore solely the responsibility of the IT Lead – we disagree

When a pupil uses Twitter to cyber bully a classmate, this isn’t because they are using Twitter, but rather they are demonstrating bad behaviour on Twitter. Similarly, if a teacher ‘friends’ a parent on Facebook, the action of the teacher is a matter of school policy and not the fault of Facebook. E-safety is therefore not just a system of filters and monitors but more importantly a matter of education.

Should raising the issue of e-safety with all those responsible for the protection of young people therefore just be left to the IT department? Should it not also include all teachers, parents, non-contact staff and indeed the pupils themselves.

The diagram shown – ‘What happens in an Internet minute’, provides evidence to support e-safety awareness across the curriculum. For example the number of hours of music listened to on Spotify could lead to an interesting discussion in a music class about the copyright issues and how artists are affected by illegal downloads. Or Instagram can be explored in a creative arts lesson. Amazon sales and e-commerce in general could be developed through maths and financial awareness studies. There are so many incredible and positive ways to use the Internet, there is no reason why e-safety education should not be equally as diverse.

We must, of course, address the issues of risk. Stranger danger has always been a safeguarding issue – yes even before the Internet. And bullying happened in the playground long before Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and so on became some of the conduits for cyber bullies. Perhaps the new phrase ‘Digital Wellbeing’ rather than ‘e-safety’ may go some way to encourage those in more pastoral roles to look at ways to support online safety from a behavioural perspective.

It is important to remember that when Ofted introduced e-safety as part of the school inspection they stated as an indicator of inadequate practice:

“There is no progressive, planned e-safety education across the curriculum, for example there is only an assembly held annually”

There are some great campaigns held throughout the year that highlight Internet safety issues, Safer Internet Day, the Childnet Film Competition, Anti-Bullying Week and so on. However, these should not be seen as stand-alone, one-off events, but more the culmination of a programme of learning throughout the year.

At E-safety Support we would love to hear your thoughts on this topic and hear examples of how you are dealing with e-safety across the curriculum. Please use the comments section below to share your ideas with other teachers.

If you would like ideas about planning e-safety throughout the year, our 2016 planner is still available to download from your E-safety Support dashboard.

Picture Credit – ‘2016 What happens in an Internet minute’ is copyright Excelacom

We are delighted to have received over 700 entries for our #esstips competition, supporting the Safer Internet Day 2016 activities.

In the last few days leading up to SID2016, we had a flurry of entries for the #esstips competition - aimed at encouraging students to come up with their own tip for safe use of the Internet. We are delighted to announce the winners.

Primary Category
In the primary category, special mention goes to the following entries:

Check your age before you click on that page! - Sudbourne School

Be safe online, I’m sure that’s fine, don’t be a bully or you’ll commit a crime. - Phillimore Community Primary School

The primary school winning entry was:
Never chat with anyone you don’t know, because you never know how far it will go
This came in from the students at Hawley Place School in Camberley

Secondary Category
Special mentions in the secondary category go to:

Don't send messages that could offend - Trinity Catholic High School, Woodford Green

Online stranger = Danger - Heart of England

Stop and think before you speak or say - Rochdale Girls School

The secondary school winning entry goes to:
If you don't know the sender, it might be a pretender!
This winning entry came from St James Senior Girls School in London

Congratulations go to everyone who entered - we had a fantastic response and we hope the students enjoyed taking part.

We would like to thank e-safety consultant Tim Pinto for choosing our winners, he had quite a job picking from hundreds of great entries.

It's great that schools are still tweeting with the hashtag #esstips - we will continue to retweet these tips throughout the year.