Online Safety
Friday, April 5, 2019
As the two week holiday is about to start, no doubt our young people will be looking forward to spending time on-line on their phones and other devices, playing games, chatting to friends etc.
How up to speed are we as parents with the networks and apps our kids are using ? To help us as parents, the NSPCC, in conjunction with O2 have created ‘ Net Aware’ a web-site where we can find no-nonsense guides for parents about the most popular social networks, apps and games, in order to help us as parents keep our kids safe on-line.
You can access Net Aware on:
Once on the website, you will see the most popular apps images pop up. If you click on the app icon, you can find lots of information about the network such as the minimum age, what children like about the network and so on. As you scroll down, you will also be able to see the views of other parents up and down the country, what they feel are the good bits of each app and what they feel the dangers are. You fill also find for each app, ‘dashboards’ which indicate the risk factors based again on the experiences of young people and their parents – You Tube for one, does not fare too well.
You will also be able to find advice on how to talk to your kids about what they doing on-line and how to talk about on-line safety with them – click on ‘talk about staying safe’.
For each network, O2 also give a safety review and they also have a scheme called ‘The O2 Guru’ – You can book an in-store appointment with the Guru (even if you do not use them as a network) by going to the following sentence and clicking on ‘here’ which will take you to a form to book an appointment:
‘ For face to face advice and support, you can also book a free in-store appointment with an O2 Guru here (even if you’re not with O2).’
You can also call them free on 0808 800 5002 (The Online Safety Helpline) where you can get on-line safety advice such as how to set up parental controls, adjust privacy settings, social networking etc.
A link to Net Aware can also be found on our website.
As we know, the internet is a fantastic resource but it has got its less positive aspects.
Please take time to have a look at the Net Aware website and navigate around – I hope that you will find it useful.
Best Wishes,
Jill Chappell
Assistant Principal & Designated Safeguarding Lead
