See, or download a copy of the leaflet above, by clicking here.

Our Top Online Safety Tips for Parents at Meadgate

It can be very difficult for parents to keep up to date with the on-line world, especially at the same speed as the children.  As parents ourselves, the staff at school are facing similar challenges.  This is made more difficult by the fact that we are the first generation of parents to be dealing with these issues.  Our own parents may be the ones we learnt our parenting skills from, but they did not have to deal with such wide ranging on-line issues (especially those of us who are older), so we have no role models to draw our experiences from.

These handy tips from offer some easy to follow ideas for parents who need guidance in understating what their children are engaged in on-line and helping them make healthy on-line choices.  We hope you find them useful.

1. Set boundaries in the online world just as you would in the real world.
2. Be involved in your child’s online life. If they love an online game, or site, explore it with them so you can chat about it together and, most importantly, understand how it works.
3. Keep up-to-date with your child’s development online. The Digital Parenting magazine we send out is really helpful and suggests what online activity is age appropriate.
4. Consider the use of parental controls on devices that link to the Internet, such as the TV, laptops, computers, games consoles and mobile phones.
5. Emphasise that not everyone is who they say they are.
6. Know which devices connect to the Internet in your house and how. You may not be aware that games consoles etc. have online capability.
7. Watch Thinkuknow films to learn more.
8. Get the technology out of the bedroom!  This will also help promote a good nights sleep.
9. PEGI ratings advise which games are appropriate for which age: they protect children from extreme scenes in many cases, so TAKE NOTICE of them.
10. Of course, if you have any concerns about the safety of any pupils at the school, you can alert us by contacting the school and asking for one of the designated child protection officers.

Digital Parenting Magazine

For the last few years, all parents have received copies of the Vodaphone Digital Parenting magazines.  They are a really useful starting point for parents who are interested in learning how they can take steps to keep their children safe on-line and contain a wealth of useful and important information including:

• Setting up controls for smartphones, search engines and social media.
• Why you should think twice before sending a risky selfie.
• Advice on online bullying, stranger danger, in-app purchases and lots more.

If you are new to our school, you can read past copies online by clicking the images above.

ThinkUKnow

ThinkUKnow is an informative site from the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) containing lots of valuable information and advice, designed especially for parents and carers around keeping their children safe on-line.

The parent sections answers questions such as:

What is my child doing on-line?

How do I talk to my child about what they are doing on-line?

What risks might my child face?

What tools are there to keep my child safe?

Most experts believe that being able to have trusting and open conversations with children about their on-line activities is the best way to find out what they like to do on-line and help them understand how they can keep themselves safe.