It’s always the first online safety date in the calendar but sneaks up on us every year, so here’s a (hopefully useful) round-up of what’s going on this year for Primary and Secondary schools. This year, the theme is “Create, Connect and Share Respect: A better internet starts with you.”
It’s worth a quick reminder of why it’s important. We don’t want schools or pupils to only think about online safety on one day per year, and we don’t want to detract from the vital flow of positive messages that teachers work on all year long. Nonetheless, we are fully behind Safer Internet Day as a celebration of all that is good about the internet and the digital world our children and young people are growing up in.
What’s happening in my area?
If you want a certificate of participation for your school in Safer Internet Day (and why wouldn’t you!!), why not register what you are doing on the official site? On that same page there is a UK map to check out physical events taking place in your area.
Are there official SID Education Packs?
Yes of course, as every year, the amazing Safer Internet Centre team have put together Education Packs and SID TV films which focus on online relationships and digital empathy. These include lesson plans, activities, and films tailored for 3-7s, 7-11s, 11-14s, 14-18s and for parents and carers. Lots to get your digital teeth stuck into
What about LGfL DigiSafe?
This is the point at which we normally point to CyberPass, our online-safety diagnostic tool which all LGfL TRUSTnet schools have access to – find out more here. It’s great for taking a snapshot of competencies to inform teaching & learning.
But actually this year we are focussing all our efforts on running a major UK-wide pupil survey with the NSPCC. It’s open from Y3 (recommended from Y5) to Y11, with slightly different questions for Secondaries, and is a great activity for Safer Internet Day – but fear not, it’s open for the whole of February so you don’t have to do it on SID itself. It doesn’t cost anything to take part in the survey, but you do need to sign up first. Find out all about it (including all the work we have done to make sure it conforms to safeguarding and data-protection best-practice) at pupilsurvey.lgfl.net
Whatever you do this Safer Internet Day, we’d love to hear about it. Tweet us at @lgfldigisafe (or share with us on Facebook) and let us know how it goes – and remember the hashtags #SID2018 and #SaferInternetDay too!
