Internet Safety Week
Feb 6, 2015 9:48:27 GMT
Post by Joe White on Feb 6, 2015 9:48:27 GMT
Hello parents and carers,
Next week is Internet Safety week for children and we are planning a number of assemblies for the children which will be age appropriate.
There is a video which we intend to use for Years 5 and 6 – which is pretty hard hitting (though actually, excellent in my opinion.) We aren’t going to use that in school for Years 3 and 4 – though we would strongly encourage parents to check it and we would further encourage parents of Year 3 and 4 children to watch it with your children.
I have put a link to the video below.
Internet safety has been a subject of media coverage for a while now – and with good reason.
This is also a very good time to draw attention to a couple of other issues relating to Internet Safety that parents may, or may not, be aware of:
Social Media:
Most parents will be pretty familiar with this concept. There are three main sites which are the most common across the country. They are Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. (In truth there are other sites too – which sometime become popular with younger children.)
They each have something in common – and that is that the minimum age for starting an account is 13 years old.
In theory that means that no children in our school should have such an account.
In practice – we are aware that there are several of our older children who do have accounts. What’s more – we are anxious about the possibility for the generation of so called “cyber bullying” to emerge from this situation.
I have very strong suspicions, for example, that there are some messages that have already been sent via one or more of the sites to other children in the school which may not be in keeping with what some parents would expect of their children – so we would strongly encourage parents to keep a close control and watch over this issue.
It’s a tricky job as a parent – I get that – however the reason that the minimum age has been set as 13 for these sites is that it is thought that this is the age at which the relative maturity of young people has reached a point where they can deal with what they see and read online without turning it into “relative unpleasantness” – for want of a better expression! Even then we are aware that some secondary schools are having a lot of trouble around the concept of cyber bullying – so even at that age – its not so straightforward.
The video touches upon the subject of cyber bullying and how that might emerge from carelessness online by an individual.
Its far from being my job to tell parents how to do your incredibly difficult job and I am absolutely not trying to preach to you. Rather I hope that what is intended as appropriate professional communication with you as partners in the development of your beautiful children comes across that way.
Social networking is part of the children’s future – and the etiquette of how to act responsibly on there is something that children need to be taught. We can work on that from school’s point of view – however – we are sure you would wish to have a very powerful input in relation to that so that you can ensure that your strong family values become manifest in your children’s online behaviours.
Entirely in a spirit of professional and pastoral helpfulness.
Kind regards
Joe White
Next week is Internet Safety week for children and we are planning a number of assemblies for the children which will be age appropriate.
There is a video which we intend to use for Years 5 and 6 – which is pretty hard hitting (though actually, excellent in my opinion.) We aren’t going to use that in school for Years 3 and 4 – though we would strongly encourage parents to check it and we would further encourage parents of Year 3 and 4 children to watch it with your children.
I have put a link to the video below.
Internet safety has been a subject of media coverage for a while now – and with good reason.
This is also a very good time to draw attention to a couple of other issues relating to Internet Safety that parents may, or may not, be aware of:
Social Media:
Most parents will be pretty familiar with this concept. There are three main sites which are the most common across the country. They are Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. (In truth there are other sites too – which sometime become popular with younger children.)
They each have something in common – and that is that the minimum age for starting an account is 13 years old.
In theory that means that no children in our school should have such an account.
In practice – we are aware that there are several of our older children who do have accounts. What’s more – we are anxious about the possibility for the generation of so called “cyber bullying” to emerge from this situation.
I have very strong suspicions, for example, that there are some messages that have already been sent via one or more of the sites to other children in the school which may not be in keeping with what some parents would expect of their children – so we would strongly encourage parents to keep a close control and watch over this issue.
It’s a tricky job as a parent – I get that – however the reason that the minimum age has been set as 13 for these sites is that it is thought that this is the age at which the relative maturity of young people has reached a point where they can deal with what they see and read online without turning it into “relative unpleasantness” – for want of a better expression! Even then we are aware that some secondary schools are having a lot of trouble around the concept of cyber bullying – so even at that age – its not so straightforward.
The video touches upon the subject of cyber bullying and how that might emerge from carelessness online by an individual.
Its far from being my job to tell parents how to do your incredibly difficult job and I am absolutely not trying to preach to you. Rather I hope that what is intended as appropriate professional communication with you as partners in the development of your beautiful children comes across that way.
Social networking is part of the children’s future – and the etiquette of how to act responsibly on there is something that children need to be taught. We can work on that from school’s point of view – however – we are sure you would wish to have a very powerful input in relation to that so that you can ensure that your strong family values become manifest in your children’s online behaviours.
Entirely in a spirit of professional and pastoral helpfulness.
Kind regards
Joe White