Online Safety
Online Safety
Technology is now ubiquitous in our daily lives. It has been, and will continue in future to be, of huge benefit to our day-to-day activities. It is therefore incredibly important that we prepare children for this technology-driven world so that they can deal with online content independently and safely.
Building Resilience
A fundamental element of online safety is supporting children to develop resilience. Rather than preventing children from using technology because it is deemed unsafe, it is far better to teach children to manage these risks safely. This can be likened to children around a swimming pool; it is far better to teach children to swim so they are safe around water, rather than cordon off the swimming pool. Children need to be able to navigate and make decisions so they are able to self-regulate independently when they leave primary school.
Our Online Safety Curriculum
At St. Matthias we follow the Switched On Online Safety Program.
The teaching content for each year group is split into six key online safety strands:
- developing online safety guidelines
- social and emotional wellbeing and developing resilience
- responsible internet use
- keeping information safe
- digital citizenship
- playing games and having fun.
What you can do
The best way to protect your children online is to be informed yourself and make it part of your day to day life. Training children to be safe online is just as important as other safety messages such as crossing the road safely. After all, they can be out in the ‘world wide web’ from a very young age, unsupervised at times.
Use the websites below to help you find the best ways to talk to your children about keeping safe online: