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Friday 17th June 2016 is Stop Cyberbullying Day - #SCD2016, an annual day where everybody can get involved and make a difference both on and off-line.

Online bullying (or more commonly called ‘cyberbullying’) can be a blight on many children’s lives. In many ways it can be more hurtful than traditional types of bullying as the victim in many cases, does not know who is posting the information, it can occur 24/7 and it is often difficult to remove.

There have been many campaigns over recent years to educate young people and ‘Stop Cyberbullying Day’ is another initiative to try and make children think about the impact of online bullying.

Over recent months, there has been much discussion about the future of the internet. The ‘Reclaim The Internet’ movement is highlighting the problem of trolling and cyberbullying of individuals who make comments and are then aggressively bullied by others who disagree with them.

Many social media experts believe that the way forward is to ensure that children and young people understand that creating a better internet means that they have to think about what they say when posting information. The concept of ‘netiquette’ and encouraging children and young people not to be ‘bystanders’ and to report and block online bullies is the way forward.

Many more social media sites now offer reporting mechanisms to ensure that users can report bullying. This includes online gaming sites such as Xbox Live, as cyberbullying can occur across many platforms. However, sites and Apps such as ‘Whisper’ have appeared which enable users to post anonymous comments which have caused many problems for schools.

For parents and teachers, it is important to recognise the signs of a child being bullied online. This can include secretive internet use, subdued behaviour and in the worst cases, self-harm.

On Stop Cyberbullying Day, the organisers of the event, The Cybersmile Foundation, are asking everybody who cares about cyberbullying and online hate campaigns to join their growing movement for action against online bullying and to help create a much safer more enjoyable environment for our children's future. Day, With the internet less than 25 years old, it is important that future generations take a stand and try to ensure that cyberbullying is confined to the history books.

All E-safety Support members can download a cyber bullying assembly from their dashboard.

Statutory guidance for schools and colleges

At the end of May, the Department for Education released the latest guidance for schools covering safeguarding. This guidance comes into effect from 5th September 2016.

Below is an excerpt from the guidance relating to online safety in schools.

Annex C: Online safety
The use of technology has become a significant component of many safeguarding issues. Child sexual exploitation; radicalisation; sexual predation- technology often provides the platform that facilitates harm. An effective approach to online safety empowers a school or college to protect and educate the whole school or college community in their use of technology and establishes mechanisms to identify, intervene and escalate any incident where appropriate.

The breadth of issues classified within online safety is considerable, but can be categorised into three areas of risk:

content: being exposed to illegal, inappropriate or harmful material

contact: being subjected to harmful online interaction with other users

conduct: personal online behaviour that increases the likelihood of, or causes, harm

Filters and monitoring
Governing bodies and proprietors should be doing all that they reasonably can to limit children’s exposure to the above risks from the school or colleges IT system. As part of this process governing bodies and proprietors should ensure their school has appropriate filters and monitoring systems in place. Whilst considering their responsibility to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, and provide them a safe environment in which to learn, governing bodies and proprietors should consider the age range of their pupils, the number of pupils, how often they access the schools IT system and the proportionality of costs Vs risks.

The appropriateness of any filters and monitoring systems are a matter for individual schools and colleges and will be informed in part by the risk assessment required by the Prevent Duty.

The UK Safer Internet Centre has published guidance as to what “appropriate” might look like:
UK Safer Internet Centre: appropriate filtering and monitoring

Guidance on e-security is available from the National Education Network - NEN. Buying advice for schools is available here - buying for schools.

Whilst filtering and monitoring are an important part of the online safety picture for schools and colleges to consider, it is only one part. Governors and proprietors should consider a whole school approach to online safety. This will include a clear policy on the use of mobile technology in the school. Many children have unlimited and unrestricted access to the internet via 3G and 4G in particular and the school and college should carefully consider how this is managed on their premises.

Whilst it is essential that governing bodies and proprietors ensure that appropriate filters and monitoring systems are in place; they should be careful that “over blocking” does not lead to unreasonable restrictions as to what children can be taught with regards to online teaching and safeguarding.

Staff training
Governors and proprietors should ensure that as part of the requirement for staff to undergo regularly updated safeguarding training (paragraph 64) and the requirement to ensure children are taught about safeguarding, including online (paragraph 68), that online safety training for staff is integrated, aligned and considered as part of the overarching safeguarding approach.

The full guidance document can be downloaded from the Department for Education website.

Paragraph 64: Governing bodies and proprietors should ensure that all staff members undergo safeguarding and child protection training at induction. The training should be regularly updated. Induction and training should be in line with advice from the LSCB.

Paragraph 68: Governing bodies and proprietors should ensure children are taught about safeguarding, including online, through teaching and learning opportunities, as part of providing a broad and balanced curriculum. This may include covering relevant issues through personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE), tutorials (in FE colleges) and/or – for maintained schools and colleges – through sex and relationship education (SRE).

If you would like to share your thoughts on the latest guidance, please use the comments section below

All primary and secondary schools as well as youth organisations across the UK are encouraged to make a film about using the internet positively

The Childnet annual film competition is now open to school children and students aged 7 – 18!

This year’s theme is all about how we can all make a positive difference online by supporting young people to ‘shine online’.

The team at Childnet have created a list of top tips for film making:

1. Think – Think about the purpose of your story and what you want to say.


2. Plan – Decide the style and genre of your film. Will it be a drama, documentary, animation, commercial or music video? Decide what equipment you will use to shoot your film.


3. Plot – What’s your story going to be about? Prepare your script, storyboard or improvisation.


4. People – Who’s going to be in your film? Who will your actors be? Who will you interview for your documentary and what models could you make if choosing to use animation?


5. Film – Get creative but always remember to frame your shots and record any audio clearly. Always watch back and listen to what you’ve just shot in case you need to re-shoot! Try using a mix of wide, medium and close up shots to make it more interesting.


6. Edit – Piece together your film and keep within the competition time frame. Make sure your story is clear with its message. If using music, be aware of copyright law!


7. Send it in - Make sure your masterpiece is sent in by your teacher or youth leader and reaches Childnet by Monday 13th June 2016 either by DVD/ USB or electronically.

Prizes
There are some fantastic prizes to be won. This year the finalists in each category will each receive a film based prize package for their school. The first prize package includes:

Canon DSLR camera

Tripod

Mic

Clapperboard

Animation rig

Lights

Camera case

Reflector

Finalist's event
The winners for each category will be announced at the finalist's event on 18th July.

Each year hundreds of primary and secondary schools and youth organisations across the UK submit their internet safety films to the Childnet Film Competition. From those entries the Childnet team choose the top 3 entries in each category, these become our finalists. These finalists are invited to attend a private screening at the BFI.

All the finalists’ films are shown on the big screen and the young people are given an opportunity to share what they learnt and enjoyed most about making their films.

How to enter
To enter the Childnet Film Competition please send an email to film@childnet.com to request an information pack.

If you would like any more information, or find out more and download the schools packs visit Childnet.com

If you would like to register a group of talented young people you know, then please send an email to film@childnet.com. Don't forget, the closing date for entries is Monday 13th June 2016 at 5pm.