The REAL safer internet day dawned today – a freezing cold, frosty morning which definitely warranted 2 thick woollies to keep me warm in the hall for a safer internet day assembly (I think it was possibly colder in there than on the playground afterwards when I was on duty).
Armed with my handbag and some slips of paper labelled “My Name”, “My Age”, etc, I took my place at the front of the hall in front of the key stage 2 pupils. Why a handbag? I can just imagine you asking this, but it seemed to get the message over pretty well – Why do I keep my handbag zipped up? What sort of stuff would I want to keep safe in there? What sort of stuff would I object to someone stealing from it? An opportunity to share ideas and interact went well and led into us deciding which bits of information needed zipping up in my bag to keep them safe and which bits of information were ok to share.
The children made the suggestions to block other users or sites, to navigate away from images, messages, things that make them feel uncomfortable and to flag up any issues with parents or teachers. It was useful to consolidate what they had learnt in yesterday’s presentation about Zip It, Block It, Flag It and to share with the year 3 pupils who hadn’t shared the experience. We followed up by an unsupported writing opportunity to explain the principles (evidence for APP writing!) and sharing the Kim and Lee film (Animal Magic) from CEOP (that bit didn’t work too well, as the downloaded film didn’t play all the way through for some reason, even though it had worked yesterday).
We also had an opportunity to discuss what the children are actually doing online – there has been a huge increase in the numbers of children accessing the internet every day over the last couple of years in school. There’s also been an increase in the numbers using social networking sites – out of 2 classes questioned, there were 18 children between 8 and 11 who are using facebook regularly. The use of mobile phones to access the internet is increasingly prevalent, reflecting what is going on in the world we live in. Many of those with such phones actually have much better phones than me, so there was a bit of tech envy on my part! Gaming uses were the largest use of the internet by far – fortunately no-one on World of Warcraft this time!
We had technical hitches for the parents meeting too. After trying out the Microsoft live meeting last week with great success, this week there were problems hearing the audio tonight. Fortunately we had a backup plan – a CEOP Purely for Parents presentation that we were able to use and the materials that had arrived by post from Microsoft. It was just a shame that there were only 4 parents there, though we were able to have a useful chat about the principles of e-safety we are teaching in school and how, as parents, we can best support our children to be able to access the enormous benefits of the internet safely. Feedback seemed to indicate that the meeting had met its objective of raising awareness of the issues and some of the ways we can support children. An interesting discussion.
So did the day raise awareness? In school, yes, both with pupils and with staff. With parents? Not as much as hoped.
