Know IT All for Primary Schools

Know IT All for Primary Schools is a new resource from Childnet International. It aims to support primary school teachers with practical advice and help children to remain better protected online. There are 5 films for children featuring Kara, Winston and the SMART crew. Each film tackles a different theme and there are a range of activities and lesson plans to accompany each one.

The resource is free from the DCSF (Tel: 0845 6022260 Ref Num: 00321 – 2009CDO-EN). For more information visit: www.childnet-int.org/KIA/primary/

Hector’s World

Hector’s World is a great resource for introducing internet safety issues to key stage 1 pupils.

It comprises of five state-of-the-art, animated episodes. It takes children on a journey with Hector and his friends as they explore issues such as personal information, trustworthiness, making positive choices online and how to be open with a trusted adult when they use the internet.

The animation has been adapted for a young UK audience following successful running of the programme in New Zealand and is backed up by a series of free resources available to parents and teachers via the dedicated CEOP education website – thinkuknow.co.uk. All materials have been developed in consultation with Becta and with teachers.

In addition, Hector the dolphin, can be downloaded onto your computer and will then float over internet pages. If anything appears on the screen that makes children feel uncomfortable then they can click on Hector Protector who will cover the page and give them a positive message for doing the right thing.

 

Internet Safety

Thanks to David at the SWGfL for the following message:

With Christmas fast approaching, many parents will be buying computers, laptops, mobiles or gaming consoles for their children.  CEOP (The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre) are launching a campaign to raise parent’s awareness to some of the risks and issues associated with the Internet and online environments to make their children’s use of the amazing opportunities presented by the Internet inherently safer.  

The following article and resources from the SWGfL encourages schools to raise awareness with their parents via:

•  The flash banner, which can be downloaded and published on a schools own website, promoting the campaign and linking to the new CEOP site.

• School newsletters. Schools are encouraged to include (copy and paste) the article in any newsletter to be sent out. 

The aim is to encourage parents to think about safeguarding any purchase and also to visit: www.thinkuknow.co.uk/parents/presents/ to obtain more information and subscribe to security bulletins.

Evidently the message is really important to promote and having ready made resources helps the process and will make a significant difference.

 

Teaching Internet Safety in Keystage 1 and 2

As previously mentioned, there is a wealth of resources available for helping teach primary pupils how to use the Internet safely. However, if time is short (what really?!) and you can only look at two then try Hector’s World for Key stage 1 and the Cyber Cafe from the thinkuknow Internet Proficiency scheme in key stage 2.

Hector’s World is great for introducing internet safety issues to Key stage 1 pupils. There are a series of lesson plans and activities aimed at younger children. Hector, who is a dolphin, can be downloaded onto your computer and will then float over internet pages. If anything appears on the screen that makes children feel uncomfortable then they can click on Hector Protector who will cover the page and give them a positive message for doing the right thing.  

The Cyber Cafe has been recently up dated and relaunched. There are characters in the cafe to take children through the issues they may be interested in such as searching, email, chat and social networking. The site now uses more audio rather than text and comes with free lesson plans and resources.

Internet Safety

There are so many fun, interesting and educational websites on the internet but how can you ensure that pupils are safe when they are online? The Internet Proficiency Scheme from Grid Club encourages children to develop safe behaviour when using the internet and follow the SMART rules.

 A number of other websites are also set up for pupils, teachers and parents with guidance on how to stay safe online. These include:

Get Net Wise, Think U Know

Childnet International, For Kids By Kids Online

The BBC’s Newsround website also has a section on Safe Surfing 

Internet policy templates are available to download from the Wiltshire Subject Leader’s File, SWGfL, or the Oxfordshire Schools Website. In addition, previous entries to this blog have suggested sites which begin to encourage children to question internet validity and search safely for images.

Safe Image Searching

Following on from a previous entry ‘Online Image Search’ there is some good technical advice from ICT Nuggets on making Google images (a little) safer. See article. There is also a list of alternative websites for searching for images.

In addition, E2BN (SEGfL) have launched a gallery of copyright free downloadable images.