The theme of Safer Internet Day in the UK this year looked at identity online and how young people manage, curate and navigate their online identity. Digital Leaders from five schools, a mixture of primary and secondary, attended the Safer Internet Day event at the BT Centre in London on 11th February.
Guests from the internet industry as well as services which support young people, government and policy attended the event which was organised by the UK Safer Internet Centre and hosted by Homyra, a Digital Leader from Mayfield School.
Digital Leader teams from Coopers School, Harris Academy Tottenham, Leigh Academy Blackheath, Stanburn Primary School and Woodcote Primary School attended and prepared and led activities around the theme of identity online for the guests, to encourage them to think about what this means to young people and whether everyone is free to be themselves online.
Digital Champions, Aimee and Cosima, were also in attendance to talk to guests about the Young People’s Charter. Take a look at our blog post about the Young People’s Charter and Digital Leaders’ involvement in the development of the charter here.
Young people give their thoughts on online safety
Homyra kicked off the event in the auditorium by welcoming everybody and introducing speeches from Marc Allera, CEO of Consumer Goods at BT, who spoke about how proud he was to host the event at the BT Centre as well as Will Gardner, CEO of Childnet and Director of the UK Safer Internet Centre. Will spoke about how important Safer Internet Day is, and how it can be used to to start conversations around young peoples’ lives online and talked about the breadth of activities that young people across the UK were doing to celebrate the day.
Will presented the Safer Internet Day research report, ‘Free To Be Me: piecing together identity online’ which looks at how young people manage, curate and navigate their online identity and highlighted the key findings from the research to the guests.
Aimee then delivered the youth keynote speech. She spoke about why she wanted to become a Digital Leader, what her new role as a Digital Champion involved as well as the importance of the theme of exploring online identity.
After the speeches, the guests were invited to take part in the Digital Leader led activities. Activities included drawing your own avatar to display your online persona, thinking about which scenarios are more likely to happen offline or online and looking at the things you do online that make up your online identity.
Guests received stickers for visiting each activity station. Aimee and Cosima also ran an activity which involved explaining the Young People’s Charter and asking the guests to make pledges in how they are going to champion the charter. Take a look at our blog post about the Young People’s Charter here.
Everyone then returned to the auditorium again for the final part of the event. This session involved a panel hosted by Natasha Devon MBE with panellists from a variety of organisations which support young people, such as The Mix, Girlguiding and Glitch. The Digital Leaders in attendance had prepared questions for the panel around the theme of how young people manage their online identities and what support there is for young people in managing their online lives. This created some great discussions among the panel.
The day was a huge success and we were so pleased to have so many Digital Leaders in attendance to lead the event and represent the entire Digital Leaders community. Thank you to the Digital Leaders who attended as well as their teachers and chaperones who supported their pupils on the day. Thank you also to the Digital Champions, Aimee and Cosima, for attending and speaking passionately about the Young People’s Charter, and to Aimee for her impressive key note speech. Thank you also to Homyra for being an excellent youth host, welcoming guests to the event and introducing speakers to the stage. All of the Digital Leaders in attendance were fantastic in their roles on the day.
Take a look at the Safer Internet Day research report here. And the Young People’s Charter here.
Make sure to let us know what you did to celebrate Safer Internet Day in your school by emailing [email protected], so that we can include your activities in a Safer Internet Day roundup blog post!
Siobhán and Fabian from the Childnet Digital Leaders team recently visited the Barnfield Primary Digital Leaders. They were very impressed with what the team have already achieved in school as well as their plans for the next few months!
The team have completed the core training modules and have also run assemblies in school for Anti-Bullying Week and Safer Internet Day. The assemblies were such a success that after watching them other pupils wanted to become Digital Leaders too! We want to say well done to the Barnfield Digital Leaders for making such a big impact in their school already. No doubt that the team will make an even bigger impact in the next few months as they have impressive plans to share their online safety knowledge and support pupils in their school to keep safe online.
The team’s plans include writing for the school newsletter and running a school poster-making competition. We think these are fantastic ways to get their online safety messages out to the whole school and to encourage pupils to think creatively!
Whilst visiting them the Barnfield Primary Digital Leaders also shared their top online safety tips with us. These included:
Don’t share your personal information
If you receive nasty messages, you don’t need to reply
Always tell an adult when in doubt
Be careful who you talk to online
Be kind online
We had a great time visiting the Barnfield Primary Digital Leaders and talking to them about their role as Digital Leaders in school. Thank you to Ms Vessey and the fantastic Digital Leaders for welcoming us to your school. Good luck and keep us updated with what you achieve!
If your Digital Leaders would like a school visit from the Childnet Digital Leaders team, then please get in touch at [email protected].
Make sure to keep us up to date with what your Digital Leaders achieve in school by emailing [email protected] and tweeting @ChildnetDL.
This blog looks at the Digital Leaders’ involvement in the Young People’s Charter for Safer Internet Day 2020.
In consultation with young people across the UK, the UK Safer Internet Centre produced the Young People’s Charter for Safer Internet Day 2020. The Charter calls upon the government and internet industry to make a more inclusive internet where everyone is #freetobe themselves.
41 Digital Leaders contributed to this charter, alongside other young people across the UK, through an online survey. Our Digital Champions fed into the charter through consultation, helping to shape the charter’s four key points which highlight the demands that young people need government to act upon to keep them safe and free to be themselves online.
Aimee and Cosima, two of the Childnet Digital Champions, were involved in the development of the charter. They then presented the charter to MPs at Westminster and then to industry at the Safer Internet Day event in London.
Take a look at the full charter here for more depth around the four calls to action.
The Young People’s Charter includes:
Provide good quality education about the internet
Protect equal rights and opportunities online and offline
Establish better protection and accountability
Give us the space and power to create change
The Young People’s Charter launch in parliament on Safer Internet Day 2020
Aimee and Cosima, two of the Digital Champions launched the charter by presenting it to MPs at parliament on Safer Internet Day. They spoke directly to over 25 MPs, explaining the purpose and importance of the clear demands included in the charter. They also explained how the charter was developed by the UK Safer Internet Centre with young people. The charter comes from the young people that the UK Safer Internet Centre spoke to.
Aimee and Cosima then attended the Safer Internet Day event where they presented the charter to guests from the internet industry and asked guests to pledge to play their part to support young people online and to champion the Young People’s Charter.
Photo: Baroness Nicky Morgan,Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, gives her support for the Youth Charter
The Safer Internet Day 2020 research report which influenced and accompanies the Young People’s Charter can be found here.
Welcome to the February post of our monthly achievements and updates blog. Here we congratulate schools who have completed their training over the past month and share good news stories from Digital Leader schools.
Well done to the Digital Leader teams from the following schools who have recently completed their online training!
Anderton Park Primary
Caldershaw Primary School
Christ Church CE (VC) Primary – 2nd cohort!
Christ the King RC Primary School – 2nd cohort!
Foxhills Junior School
Frogmore Junior School – 3rd cohort!
Kinsley Primary School – 2nd cohort!
Our Lady and St Rose of Lima Primary School – 2nd cohort!
Rochester Independent College – 2nd cohort!
St. Louise’s Comprehensive College
St Olave’s Prep School
Safer Internet Day is in just a few days, on Tuesday 11th February. Make sure that your school has signed up as a supporter for the day. Download the education packs here if you need some last minute activity ideas for the day and make sure to use the social media guide to engage in the social media campaign on the day. We can’t wait to see what Digital Leaders across the country do for Safer Internet Day 2020. Make sure to tweet @ChildnetDL@UK_SIC so we can see what your team are doing on the day and retweet you!
Digital Leader School Visits
Over the past month the Childnet Digital Leaders team visited St. Martins School in Derby and Penwortham Primary School in London to talk to their Digital Leader teams and find out more about what they are doing in in their roles at school.
St. Martin’s School
We visited St Martin’s School along with Phoebe and Kate from the Childnet Education team and were very happy to be involved in the assembly where the team were announced to the whole school! Siobhán was able to present the school with two certificates in the assembly and they received their Digital Leaders badges also. Well done to the team for completing the training, we are impressed with what they have already accomplished such as making a game with internet safety messages as well as a leaflet for all parents/carers. Thank you to the Digital Leaders and their teacher, Sam, for welcoming us to their school. Take a look at our blog post to find out more about our visit and see the fantastic leaflet that the St. Martins’ Digital Leaders created.
Penwortham Primary School
We visited Penwortham Primary School Digital Leaders last month and really enjoyed hearing about their exciting plans for the future. They shared their ideas for the year with Charlotte, including their plan to have a ‘Digital Leaders Day,’ which would be a day to allow pupils to try out the role of being a Digital Leader before applying. What a brilliant idea! One of the Digital Leaders had also created a wonderful poster for Safer Internet Day which included a poem they had written:
‘Be safe,
Be yourself,
Be you,
Not someone else.’
Take a look at our blog post to read the fantastic article that the Penwortham Primary School Digital Leaders wrote for their school newsletter. Thank you to the Digital Leaders for sharing your thoughts and ideas with us and Ms Berner and Ms Shipsey for hosting us.
We love visiting Digital Leader teams in action, if your team would like a visit then please get in touch at [email protected].
We are looking forward to working with Digital Leader teams throughout 2020 and really excited to see what Digital Leaders achieve this year! Please share with us what your Digital Leaders team have been up to. Email [email protected] or tweet us @ChildnetDL#ChildnetDL to be included in the next update!
Charlotte and Marie from the Childnet team had a fantastic visit to the Digital Leaders at Penwortham Primary School on 17th January 2019. The Digital Leaders told us how they have been completing the training modules whilst planning lots of exciting projects for the future! They also wrote an article for their school newspaper, ‘The Globe.’
See their article below to read about their role as Digital Leaders and find out what their aims as a team are:
Thanks to Penwortham Primary School for sharing your fantastic newspaper article, it is great to see such an informative article by the Digital Leaders. The Childnet team really enjoyed meeting the Digital Leaders and we can’t wait to see what else they achieve in their roles.
If your Digital Leaders would like a school visit from the Childnet Digital Leaders team, then please get in touch at [email protected].
Make sure to keep us updated with what your Digital Leaders achieve in school by emailing [email protected] and tweeting @ChildnetDL.
The Childnet Digital Leaders Community is an online space hosted on the Childnet Digital Leaders Platform, where Digital Leaders from around the UK can connect with each other to share ideas, advice and tips, ask questions or join our discussion topics about key issues and latest trends.
In this blog post, we will reflect on some of the exciting conversations that have happened in the Childnet Digital Leaders Community since the start of term in September.
Community Prize Posts
In the first week of term, we launched our new ‘Community Prize Posts’ where secondary aged Digital Leaders who respond are in with a chance of winning a prize! Four months on, we’ve had some really exceptional and thought-provoking responses and we’ve sent out prizes to five amazing Digital Leaders.
One of our earliest prize posts led to a fantastic debate about the popular app, TikTok:
“I actually have Tik Tok myself and it’s really fun. The posts on there always make me laugh, and it’s such a big community that everyone seems to come together.” Secondary Digital Leader
“I think Tik Tok is a bad app to have as there are a lot of people that you dont know that can comment on your posts and maybe harass you. It can make some people laugh and some people may think its fun. But it can really hurt peoples feelings.“ Secondary Digital Leader
We’ve also heard some really interesting perspectives on topics like online activism, fake news and digital detoxes:
“I think online activism is a slightly useless act, because you’re just saying, not doing, and the point of activism is to make a change and make people listen, so just saying something online won’t do that. I think it works well only to back up/support and increase views on a campaign.” Secondary Digital Leader
“I’ve seen a great campaign for a cause online. The #ENDviolence project with UNICEF by a Korean boyband BTS, empowered a phrase, “Love Yourself.” This is to call out everyone especially teens to know & understand themselves.” Secondary Digital Leader
“Social media companies should have a team of “investigators” to take down any fake news and remind people online that it was fake news.” Secondary Digital Leader
“Individuals could help combat the spread of fake news by reporting it or standing up to it. I think the best way for an individual to help would be reporting it though. Simply press the report button that differs depending on what platform you use, but it is usually a triangle, explanation mark or three dots. ” Secondary Digital Leader
The Community Prize Posts will continue throughout 2020 so look out for future round ups, and chances for your Digital Leaders to get engaged in the discussions!
Of course, it isn’t just the Community Prize Posts starting conversations. Well done to the following Digital Leaders for starting some of the most popular conversation threads last term:
Arnas B and Stuart B who both asked about age verification online.
Lauren P who wanted to know what Digital Leaders think are the top ten most common online dangers.
Ubayd S who started lots of conversations about the positive and negative impacts of gaming.
And Abdulla M who was interested in what users can do to counter fake social media accounts.
Finally we have had some exciting opportunities for Digital Leaders to contribute to discussion threads on the community which have helped inform Childnet staff and shape the work we do in the wider online safety space. For example we had some really insightful comments from Digital Leaders about expiring content. These comments, along with further research we have been conducting in this area, will make up a final report to be published in the coming weeks.
Digital Leaders also asked some fantastic questions about safe gaming, which we were able to share with Laura Higgins, Director of Community Safety and Digital Civility at Roblox. Video content of her answers will be available on the platform very soon and will also help shape a brand new module on safe gaming for the primary platform!
All pupils enrolled in the secondary programme are able to access the community and we look forward to seeing and hearing more exciting contributions from them in the future. For schools enrolled in the primary programme there is also the option for pupils to have access to a separate community, which staff can choose whether they would like to use on an individual school basis.
Welcome to the January post of our monthly achievements and updates blog. Here we congratulate schools who have completed their training over the past month and share good news stories from Digital Leader schools.
Well done to the Digital Leader teams from the following schools who have recently completed their online training!
College Town Primary School
Pallister Park Primary
Queen’s College
Sarum Hall – 2nd cohort!
Selston High School – 2nd cohort!
St Patrick’s CE Primary Academy
The John Bamford Primary – 2nd cohort!
Walkington Primary School – 3rd cohort!
Warwick Preparatory School – 2nd cohort!
A quick round up of some fantastic tweets from Digital Leaders schools over the past month, highlighting some of the impressive achievements of their Digital Leaders:
We are looking forward to working with Digital Leader teams throughout 2020 and really excited to see what Digital Leaders achieve this year! Please share with us what your Digital Leaders team have been up to. Email [email protected] or tweet us @ChildnetDL#ChildnetDL to be included in the next update!
Welcome to the December post of our monthly achievements and updates blog. Here we congratulate schools who have completed their training over the past month and share good news stories from Digital Leader schools.
Well done to the Digital Leaders teams from the following schools who have recently completed their online training!
Barnfield Primary School – 2nd cohort!
Bredon School – 2nd cohort!
Bromley High School Juniors – 3rd cohort!
Clayesmore Preparatory School – 2nd cohort!
Cumnor House School for Girls
De Bohun Primary School – 2nd cohort!
Highworth Grammar School
The King’s Ely Secondary School
Northampton High School Junior – 2nd cohort!
Oakington Manor Primary
Reed’s School – 2nd cohort!
Royal Masonic School for Girls – 3rd cohort!
Royal Russell – 2nd cohort!
Sawtry Village Academy – 2nd cohort!
St Martins School
The Belvedere Academy
The King’s Ely Secondary School
The William Henry Smith School
Cardiff Regional Event
Last month we had our fourth Regional Event in Cardiff. The event was an opportunity for young people across the region to collaborate on ways to share their online safety knowledge with the pupils at their schools. The young people also received exclusive training from the Childnet Education Team who present sessions and workshops at schools all over the country.
Thank you to the schools that attended the Digital Leaders Regional Event in Cardiff, thank you to the Digital Leaders in attendance and the teachers who supported throughout the day. Special thank you to St. John’s College Juniors for hosting and Ms Howells for working with us on the event. Your preparations helped to make the day run smoothly!
Digital Leader school visits
Danielle visited Moss Park Junior School last month to see what their Digital Leaders have been doing and to hear about their plans to share their knowledge with the rest of their school. Thank you to the Digital Leaders for spending time talking to Danielle, she was really impressed with your hard work!
Digital Families Hackathon
Thank you to the Digital Leaders from JFS who came to the Facebook Digital Families Hackathon event. Max, Jessica and Eva, your contributions were valuable and we are grateful for your participation and input.
Anti-Bullying Week 2019
Well done to all of the Digital Leaders who celebrated Anti-Bullying Week and Odd Socks Day in their schools. Thank you to all of the Primary and Secondary Digital Leaders who completed the ‘Run activities for Anti-bullying Week 2019’ module on the training platforms and told us about the activities they had done to celebrate. Look out for a blog post featuring a roundup of the activities that Digital Leaders told us they did in school to celebrate Anti-Bullying Week and to help stop bullying in their school.
We particularly liked this tweet from Bromley High School Juniors, showcasing how their Digital Leaders led Odd Socks Day in their school with their funky odd socks!
Congratulations to Grovelands Community Primary School Digital Leaders
Digital Leaders from Grovelands Community Primary School made a video about Screen time and are featured on the ‘social news’ section of their school website, well done team! https://grovelands-school.co.uk/
We love to see Digital Leader groups getting creative with how they can share their online safety knowledge and Grovelands Digital Leaders clearly learnt a lot from the Screen Time and Healthy Balance module!
We challenge your team to make a video to share what you learn in the next training module you complete! Let us know what your Digital Leader team have achieved to be featured in this blog or our community newsletter!
Please share with us what your Digital Leaders team have been up to. Email [email protected] or tweet us @ChildnetDL#ChildnetDL to be included in the next update!
Welcome to the November post of our monthly achievements and updates blog. Here we congratulate schools who have completed their training over the past month and share good news stories from Digital Leader schools.
Well done to the Digital Leaders teams from the following schools who have recently completed their online training!
Cathays High – 3rd cohort!
Norwich High Prep School Junior – 2nd cohort!
St John Bosco RC Primary School – 3rd cohort!
Swavesey Village College
Welland Park Academy – 3rd cohort!
Digital Leader school visits
Many thanks to the following Digital Leader schools who hosted us for visits throughout October. We want to thank all the Digital Leaders and Digital Leader teachers at these schools for their hospitality and enthusiasm. We were hugely impressed by the insights we received from the Digital Leaders, and the impact they are making in their schools.
Parc Eglos School
Thank you for welcoming Danielle and showing her what you have been working on as Digital Leaders. Danielle was really impressed by your enthusiasm and excellent ideas and we are excited to see the impact you continue to make!
JFS School
Thank you for hosting Siobhan and Fabian and helping us to develop our upcoming secondary module. Your questions and thoughts on the topic were invaluable. Keep an eye out for some of the JFS Digital Leaders appearing in the new secondary module which will be released very soon!
Forest School
Thank you for welcoming Amy and Becca to your school and helping us to develop our upcoming primary module. We really enjoyed talking to you about the module topic. Look out for some of the Forest school Digital Leaders in the upcoming primary module!
If your Digital Leaders would like a visit from the Childnet Digital Leaders team then please get in touch at [email protected]
Please share with us what your Digital Leaders team have been up to. Email [email protected] or tweet us @ChildnetDL#ChildnetDL to be included in the next update!
Welcome to the July edition of our monthly achievements and updates blog. Here we congratulate schools who have completed their training and share good news stories from Digital Leaders schools.
Well done to the Digital Leaders teams from the following schools who have recently completed their online training!
Chellaston Junior School
Finborough School
Notting Hill and Ealing High School Junior
Oaklands Primary Academy
Sir John Leman High School – 2nd cohort!
Wibsey Primary School
Congratulations to Digital Leaders from Sandown Primary School who finished the term at the top of the Primary Leaderboard and Coopers School who finished top of the Secondary Leaderboard this term!
Thank you to Zahra, a Digital Leader from Sarah Bonnell School
Digital Leaders give their thoughts on the Online Harms white Paper
Many thanks to all of the Digital Leaders who contributed their thoughts and opinions on the Online Harms White Paper which was published by government earlier this year. Childnet included the youth perspective of Digital Leaders in our response to the White Paper. Take a look at our blog which includes the full response from the Childnet Digital Leaders.
Many thanks to all of our Digital Leaders and teachers for all of their hard work this year. Have a great summer holiday, we look forward to working with all of our Digital Leaders teams next year and seeing the incredible impact that you make!
Please share with us what your Digital Leaders team have been up to and what they have planned for next year. Email [email protected] or tweet us @ChildnetDL #ChildnetDL to be included in the September update!
Updates from the Childnet Digital Leaders team
We will be releasing new modules on the primary and secondary training platforms this week! These modules are focused on the topics of Digital Health, Wellbeing and Resilience and we can’t wait for Digital Leaders to try them out next term. We will also be rejuvenating the platforms over the summer so keep your eyes peeled for the new layout!
If you have not yet subscribed to the Childnet Digital Leaders Programme and would like a taster version of the online training platform please register your interest and request a 14 day guest login here.
