Online Safety & Digital Awareness in School 

Online Safety is integral to our responsibility to ensure that children are kept safe in school. Digital parenting is also a key aspect to maintaining children’s safety at home.

The development of children’s digital awareness is woven throughout the computing curriculum and also forms a part of our RHE (Relationships and Health Education) provision.

The Inspire Partnership has identified that the teaching of computing and use of technology is to be a priority as part of our curriculum.  As we move technology forward as a Trust, our strategy is to achieve the following for all pupils:

• Improve children’s engagement in lessons
• Help children adapt to different learning styles
• Provide a secure and safe environment for online use
• Be prepared for the digital world

As the high-tech world advances in telecommunications, it is imperative that we all work together, both at school and home, to ensure that Online Safety is paramount and at the very core of all use of digital resources.  As a school, we are very mindful of how important it is to ensure that our children are fully aware of how to use the internet safely. We do this by embedding online safety lessons throughout our curriculum and by talking about issues surrounding the internet through circle time sessions and assemblies. It is important that we teach our children to communicate with respect and kindness in real life and online, and also that we show them that we are working together on this.

 

Safer Internet Day

Our school takes part in Safer Internet Day which includes differentiated assemblies and activities across the school. This year, our Digital Leaders led the assembly as part of the Junior Leadership Team.

We have also held workshops across KS1 and KS2, specifically with Year 6 children linked to the appropriate use of social networking. In KS1, children are draw into discussions through the use of texts and narrative such as ‘Digi-Duck’s Dilemma’.

Older pupils explore social media dynamics, privacy settings, and positive online behavior. We place a strong focus on critical thinking and AI literacy, empowering Key Stage 2 children to evaluate digital media, question sources, and safely navigate AI-generated content.

Digital Awareness within the Classroom

We employ a range of texts and narratives to engage the children in discussions about their learning. These carefully selected texts are applicable across key stages and each explore different aspects of our digital world.

Children have also engaged with Google’s ‘Interland’ which forms part of their ‘Be Internet Awesome’ campaign. This gave the children the opportunity to enhance their digital literacy skills by assessing and evaluating online behaviours across a range of online scenarios.