Safer Internet Day 

At the beginning of February, we all celebrate Safer Internet Day. This is a day where the world turns its attention to keeping safe online. The theme this year was: 'Considering how we keep safe online and how to avoid scams?' and after a whole school assembly, all the classes took part in different activities across the day to help to reinforce keeping safe online. 

In Foundation Stage, we learned all about what to do if something they don’t like pops up on their screen or someone tries to talk to them online. They listened to a story about when this happened to Smartie the penguin, and what he did. He taught them to stop and think, and tell someone.

In Key Stage 1, the children learned that not everything online is true and how to explain what to do if they are worried or upset by something online. The children listened to a story and used emotion cards to understand how to react to certain things they may see or hear online.  

In Lower Key Stage 2, the children read a story about 'Samira' and identified how they would feel about the different events that happened to her online involving identifying scams. They also carried out role play activities to help them to recognise the signs of a scam and went on to create leaflets to inform others. 

In Upper Key Stage 2, the children learned about phishing and what this meant. They looked at various scenarios and thought about how to spot phishing online. They understood that  phishing can come in different forms. It could be an email, text message, link in a game, social media message or phone call. Using these examples, they sorted the scenarios into those which were safe and those which were considered phishing. The safe scenarios were fed as food to “Trustworthy Trout” in his fish bowl. Year 6 also created their own version of 'Newsround' reports about avoiding scams and keeping safe online to share with the younger children.

The day was a great success. We will continue to discuss online safety in other areas of the curriculum. We encourage you to both monitor and speak to your own children at home. If you need any support with online issues, please speak to Mrs Fearnley.