Earlier this year the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Home Office published the Online Harms White Paper, outlining government proposals to make the internet a safer place.
As part of the Childnet response we wanted the invaluable youth perspective on these ideas, so we asked 78 of our Childnet Digital Leaders questions which were relevant to the proposed Online Harms White Paper. These ranged from questions about the issues facing young people online to what they thought industry could do more of.
Here are some of the things they said:
“I think the biggest issue on the internet at the moment is people are over-sharing and therefore giving others too much information which they can abuse. We are always told the same things: ‘never share your password online’ ‘never talk to someone you don’t know’ and ‘keep your privacy settings high’, which are all incredibly important, however we are never taught any of the new problems.”
“I believe that social media is a big issue as it leaves a large window for cyber bullying, peer pressure, online predators and addiction. Young people face issues through social media and are constantly challenged to have the best things, the most followers etc and it can greatly upset a minor.”
“(I want to know) what the outcomes of telling teachers or trusted adults about your problems are.”
“Something that should be covered in school more often is teaching about what to do when you are being cyber bullied and how to deal with it.”
Welcome to the June 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.
Northern Ireland Regional Event
This month we had our third Regional Event in Bangor, Northern Ireland. The event was an opportunity for young people across Northern Ireland to meet each other and 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 Digital Leaders who attended the event, we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did, and we can’t wait to see how you impact online safety in your school community! Many thanks to the teachers in attendance who played a crucial role in the smooth running of the day.
Well done to the Digital Leaders teams from the following schools who have recently completed their online training!
Abbey Primary School, Northampton – 2nd cohort!
Birkenhead High School Academy- Juniors
Bromley High School Junior – 2nd cohort!
Brooke Hill Academy
Coopers School
Fens Primary School – 3rd cohort!
Gordon’s School
Grovelands Community Primary School
Llanischen Fach Primary – 2nd cohort!
Newcastle High School for Girls Junior School
Northampton High School – Junior GDST
Notre Dame Senior School – 2nd cohort!
Roedean School
Sandal Castle (VA) Community Primary School
Sandown Primary School
The Greneway Middle School – 2nd cohort!
Woodcote Primary School
Woodford County High – 2nd cohort!
Digital Leader Guest Blogs
Well done to Notre Dame Digital Leaders for the engaging blog that they sent to us including excellent top tips for speaking in assembly and key messages on hacking and secure passwords. Congratulations to King’s Ely Junior Digital Leaders for running another successful Digital Picnic, once again we are very impressed.
Take a look at their blogs that are featured on our website.
We love to post guest blogs from Digital Leaders teams, so let us know if your team would like to write a blog for our website!
Fantastic job Swaffield School Digital Leaders Wiktor and William who recently finished their training and made these excellent Digital Leader t-shirts. We love how creative you have been and can’t wait to see what you do next!
Thank you to all of the schools who have tweeted us this month, we are so impressed with your Digital Leaders teams and everything they have done to share their online safety knowledge. A special well done to West Kirby Grammar School Digital Leaders who took over their school computing department’s twitter for a whole week to share their top online safety tips!
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!
We held our third Digital Leaders Regional Event in Bangor, Northern Ireland on 19th June.
This month, we held our third Childnet Digital Leaders regional event in Bangor, Northern Ireland. It was a great opportunity for Digital Leaders and other young people from across Northern Ireland to meet and discuss online safety topics, as well as receive some exclusive training from the Childnet team.
Young people learn about reporting online
At the regional event the main topic we covered was reporting. The Childnet Education team prepared an interactive session with lots of activities for the primary and secondary pupils in attendance to help them to engage with and understand this sometimes tricky issue.
The day started with some quizzes and activities to help everyone get to know each other and to start thinking critically about different aspects of online safety. The rest of the day was focused on the important topic of reporting and the ways we can support our friends and share what we know about reporting with them. This took the form of a session led by Amy from the Childnet Education Team on the most important things to know about reporting.
The Piranha Pitch
The day built up to the final activity, the Piranha Pitch, which involved groups of young people pitching ideas to the judges (the Piranhas – or the not-so-scary teachers!) about how they could share their knowledge on reporting with their peers at their own schools.
We were really impressed with the excellent pitches and creative ideas, and, after much deliberation, the piranhas chose Yellow group as the winners! The judges really enjoyed the detail that the Yellow group went into in their pitch and were very impressed with their top tips.
Take a look at the top tips on reporting below, created by the winning group.
A massive thank you to Bangor Academy and Sixth Form College for hosting and to Mrs Kerr for being so helpful in the organising of the event.
Thank you to all of the schools that attended, the Digital Leaders that were in attendance for being such great examples of the programme, and all of the teachers at the event who supported the young people throughout the day – we would not have been able to run the event without you!
After the success of their first Digital Picnic, Digital Leaders at King’s Ely Junior gave parents and teachers another opportunity to see what they have learned on the Digital Leaders programme.
On Tuesday 4th June, King’s Ely Juniors hosted its second Digital Picnic for parents and carers, as well as children in years 3-8. The event was split into two parts. In the first part, seven Digital Leaders from years 5-8 took to the stage to discuss their online experiences.
The discussions included experiences of using Roblox, YouTube, Minecraft, TikTok, Instagram and Fortnite. The students shared negative experiences they have had such as being contacted by strangers and how they dealt with these issues. They shared experience in how best to manage screen time, friend requests and online play to maximise fun and safer digital time. The adults in the room also had the opportunity to share their experiences and tips for managing digital time.
The second part of the Digital Picnic saw families moving around visiting different information stalls run by the Digital Leaders. Each stall had different information about popular apps and games. Families had time to sit down with some delicious picnic food to discuss their digital lives including a chance to fill out a Family Agreement on the subject.
Mr Everest who had organised the event said, “I am very proud the way the Digital Leaders presented themselves on stage, explaining the highs and lows of their digital lives. It is very encouraging that the students take the matter so seriously and be aware of the digital dangers in their world. I am glad so many parents were able to attend to see the knowledge the students already have and how they can work with their child to continue to support them online. Parents shouldn’t feel alone when dealing with their children’s digital lives, all parents are having the same experiences. It is important parents speak to one another and the school about the issues, as we all have the children’s best interests at heart.”
One parent commented, “It is very pleasing to see the children having the knowledge to deal with issues online. This event shows me that open dialogue on the topic is very possible and positive.”
Well done King’s Ely Juniors and Mr Everest for putting on yet another fantastic event! If your school have hosted a Digital Leaders event, we would love to hear about it, please email [email protected] to have your blog featured on the Digital Leaders website.
Digital Leaders at Notre Dame Senior School took the opportunity to let their fellow students know some of the most common pitfalls when it comes to selecting passwords. In this blog the Digital Leaders look at how they decided on this topic and give their top tips for delivering an engaging and interesting assembly.
As a result of our Digital Leaders training, we decided to put a question box in our computer science classroom, where pupils could ask us questions or raise concerns they might have. The box soon filled up. Whilst some were rather silly such as “how do I move the mouse”, quite a few pupils wanted to know more about the well-publicised, yet little understood, subject of hacking.
So we took the subject to the masses and decided to hold an assembly for our Year 7 peers to explain to them about what hacking is, why it happens and even how to do it. The timing was perfect too as we recently learnt, from the results of the first National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) UK cyber survey, that in 2019 23.2 million people still use ‘123456’ as their password, amongst other mind-blowingly simple passwords.
Key message
We started by talking about hackers and the different types of hacking. Unethical hackers hack out of malice and for notoriety on social media and other websites that are easy to get into. Ethical hackers hack for positive reasons, such as being employed to protect big companies from being hacked and to get rid of bugs. Even though some unethical hackers get caught, and are punished under the Computer Misuse Act, some have been rumoured to be employed as ethical hackers as they have the skills necessary and have thought of clever and interesting ways to break a computer system that others have not. Let us not forget hacking is a very clever, complicated skill.
The second message we shared was about how simple some people’s passwords are and how easy they are to break, which is why hackers focus on this in the first place. We also tricked lots of Year 7’s into giving away their passwords by putting their hands up and admitting to some of the most easy-to-crack passwords. It was worrying how many pupils had fallen foul of this. The most common password is still ‘123456’ which, sadly, is then followed by ‘123456789’ then ‘qwerty, and then ‘password’. What are people these days thinking? Many people also use names in their password, with the most common name used being ‘Ashley’. Most hackers are clever enough to look elsewhere for your password too, from your social media profiles for example. If you mention your dog called ‘Fluffy’ the hacker can guess that it may be your password. A top tip is to use three words including: capitals, lowercase, numbers and a symbol. For example 123* will take a hacker so long to figure out they will most likely just give up trying!
Top (Digital Leader) Tips on speaking in assembly
When speaking in front of people you need to believe in what you are saying.
You do not need to know what you are saying off by heart, but you need to know the meaning behind what you are saying.
You need to speak truthfully.
Another tip is pretending no one is there, imagine the room is empty and that will take the pressure off, it works really well but don’t forget to project your voice too.
Don’t race through what you’re saying, pace yourself, take your time, it will calm any nerves too. Once you get going you’ll be fine, but keep it steady.
Finally, live in the moment and enjoy it!
What else have we been up to as Digital Leaders
As Digital Leaders we have also conducted other assemblies, this time to the whole school, on Safer Internet Day giving pupils a quiz on ‘Big Data’ and what happens to our data and what could happen to it in the future if we are not careful. We have also been busy doing our training, where some have found it easier than others to fit it in around our studies.
What’s next…
So, you may be wondering what’s next? Well we are planning an exciting Digital Leaders notice board, which will:
Highlight what we have been up to,
What will we be doing next,
Highlight some of the most important messages from our training and any important / relevant things to look out for in the digital world.
Lastly, we are also going to be interviewing the next Year 7 Digital Leader applicants to hopefully find the next generation of budding Digital Leaders!
Thank you Notre Dame Senior School for being outstanding Digital Leaders and for writing this very engaging blog. If your Digital Leaders would like to write a guest blog, please contact[email protected]
Welcome to the May 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.
Digital Leaders School visits
Danielle visited Digital Leaders at Uffculme School this month. Danielle was delighted to hear about the progress the pupils are making through the online training modules and that they are planning to enter Childnet’s Film competition. Check out our blog for more details on Danielle’s visit. Thank you to Ms. Craven and Sam, Joseph, Stuart, Kaden and Luke for meeting with Danielle!
Many thanks to the Digital Leaders and teachers at Mayfield School and St Jude’s C of E Primary School for welcoming colleagues from the wider Childnet team to talk about Safer Internet Day 2020. The Digital Leaders were very helpful in giving their thoughts on the theme for the next Safer Internet Day.
Let us know at [email protected] if your Digital Leaders would like a visit from the team or if they would be interested in writing a blog for our website!
Well done to the Digital Leaders teams from the following schools who have recently completed their online training!
Berwick Hills Primary School- 2nd cohort!
Guildford High School- Senior
Hazelmere Junior School- 4th cohort!
Immanuel College
Littleton Green Community School
Lindfield Primary Academy
Orchid Vale Primary School
Our Lady’s Catholic School- 2nd cohort!
Parc Eglos Primary School- 2nd cohort!
Polam Hall Junior School
Rowlatts Hill Primary Academy
St. Mary’s School, Cambridge
Swaffield School- 2nd cohort!
The Gulf English School
The Royal Masonic School for Girls- 3rd cohort!
Warwick Preparatory School
King’s Ely Digital Leaders hosted a Digital Picnic
Congratulations to King’s Ely Digital Leaders for running their first Digital Picnic of the year, a great way to involve families and encourage discussions about online safety. Take a look at the blog explaining the role the Digital Leaders took at the picnic. We are excited to hear about future picnics!
Well done to all of the Digital Leaders teams who have made it on to their school’s twitter this month. We are very impressed with your assemblies, videos, posters and events for parents!
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!
In this blog the King’s Ely Digital Leaders tell us about the new ways that they are engaging parents in online safety education.
Digital Leaders from King’s Ely have hosted their first ‘Digital Picnic’ for the year, with more planned over the next few months. The digital picnics are the King’s Ely Digital Leaders way of inviting parents in to discuss the issues affecting young people online, as well as offering practical advice and resources that can help them.
The picnic involved pupils from years 2 to 5 and their parents and carers. Performance author Simon Firth performed a story about a boy and his digital safety bubble. The story was very engaging for both children and adults and they could recognise when the boy was safe online.
After the performance and some picnic food, families visited stalls run by the Digital Leaders. Each stall provided information about different mobile apps and games and advice on how to stay safe when using them. The stall promoting family agreements was very popular, parents and children planned to have discussions at home about screen time and which apps they use.
One parent commented, “It is great that now we are using the same language about digital safety- at school, at home, parent and child.”
For their next digital picnic the King’s Ely Digital Leaders will be taking to the stage to discuss their own digital experiences. They want parents/carers to know what they do online and how well they deal with any online issues that they face.
We think that these Digital Picnics are a fantastic idea to start a conversation between pupils and parents/carers about their online habits, so well done King’s Ely Digital Leaders!
We love to share stories of what Digital Leaders have been doing to pass on their online safety knowledge. Let us know what your Digital Leaders have been up to at [email protected] to be featured in a blog or our monthly newsletter.
Welcome to the April edition of our monthly achievements and updates blog. Here we congratulate schools who have completed their training, and share updates from the Childnet team and good news stories from Digital Leaders schools.
Digital Leaders School visits
Siobhan from the Digital Leaders team visited Flying Bull Academy this month and met their enthusiastic Digital Leaders, who explained how they were involved in the running of Safer Internet Day 2019 sessions in their school for a whole week! Siobhan was impressed by their attitude in helping other pupils with online safety and it was great to hear about their upcoming projects. Thank you to the Digital Leaders and their teacher, Mr. McGlone-Atkinson, for welcoming us to your school. Here are the Flying Bull Academy Digital Leader’s 5 top tips for online safety:
Tell someone if you are being cyberbullied
Be aware of how to block/report
Stand up for other people
Make sure websites are safe
Treat others how you would like to be treated
Let us know at [email protected] if your Digital Leaders would like a visit from the team or if they would be interested in writing a blog for our website!
Well done to the Digital Leader teams from the following schools who have recently completed their online training!
JFS School
Little Chalfont Primary School
Marymount International School
Oakmeadow CE Primary and Nursery School
Oldfield Primary School
Salcombe Preparatory School- 2nd cohort!
The Crossley Heath School
We are excited to see lots of teams completing training and all the great things they are doing to increase online safety knowledge in their school communities in the coming months!
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 March edition of our monthly achievements and updates blog. Here we congratulate schools who have completed their training, and share updates from the Childnet team and good news stories from Digital Leaders schools.
Digital Leaders School visits
Charlotte and Marie from the Digital Leaders team visited Little Chalfont Primary School this month and met their fantastic Digital Leaders, who shared how they have been making an impact in their school community. We were impressed with their enthusiasm for online safety and it was great to hear that they were proud of their place on the Leaderboard. Thank you to the Digital Leaders and their teacher, Ms. Rogers, for welcoming us to your school. We are also so impressed by the Digital Leaders page on the school website, it is fantastic and very informative, and by how the Digital Leaders were involved in securing funding for their school. Take a look at the blog that the Digital Leaders wrote about the visit here.
Let us know at [email protected] if your Digital Leaders would like a visit from the team or if they would be interested in writing a blog for our website!
East of England Regional Event
This month we had our second successful Regional Event in Ely, Cambridgeshire. The event was an opportunity for Digital Leaders to meet each other and collaborate on ways to inform parents about online safety issues affecting their children. The Digital Leaders also received exclusive training from the Childnet Education team who usually present sessions and workshops at schools all over the country. Thank you to the following Digital Leaders teams who attended the event, we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did! Thank you to your teachers also for coming with you on the day and playing a crucial part in the activities.
King’s Ely Juniors – thank you for being excellent hosts to the Childnet Digital Leaders team and the other Digital Leaders in attendance.
St. Peters School
Norwich High School for Girls
St. Mary’s School
Congratulations to De Bohun Primary School Digital Leaders
The Digital Leaders produced a fantastic leaflet to showcase the results of a survey they conducted about the use of technology among their peers. The leaflet includes some statistics from the survey as well as top tips, for example: ‘It is always advisable to check age ratings of films, games, apps and social networking sites to ensure suitability of content.’ Great work, Digital Leaders! We also spotted that the team are mentioned on their school website, so well done!
See a snapshot of the leaflet below:
Well done to the Digital Leader teams from the following schools who have recently completed their online training!
Brentfield Primary School
Darras Hall Primary School
Gayhurst School
Holtsmere End Junior School- 2nd cohort!
Joseph Locke Primary School
Kingsley Primary School
Nottingham Girls’ High School- Seniors
Orchard Primary School
Rochester Independent College
Royal Russell School
Sellincourt Primary School
Selston High School
Shrewsbury High School
The Federation of Greenways Schools
The John Bamford Primary School
The Towers
Yalding, St Peter & St Paul’s CofE Primary School- 3rd cohort!
Priory Ruskin Academy- 2nd cohort!
We love to celebrate Digital Leaders on their hard work, so 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 February edition of our monthly achievements and updates blog. Here we congratulate schools who have completed their training, share updates from the Childnet team and good news stories from Digital Leaders schools.
Digital Leaders School visits
The Digital Leaders team were lucky enough to visit two Digital Leaders schools this month.
Danielle visited Kings Ely Junior School to discuss and prepare with them for our next Regional event which is taking place at their school on Wednesday 20th March. Thank you to Kings Ely’s Digital Leaders and Mr Everest for their hospitality, Danielle had a wonderful day! Please do get in touch at [email protected] for more information if you are a Digital Leaders school and are interested in attending the regional event.
Siobhan and Charlotte had the pleasure of visiting Digital Leaders at Sawtry Village Academy in Cambridgeshire. They had a brilliant time discussing lots of topics with the Digital Leaders including how they are helping other students with online safety issues and how they have been involved in advising parents about how to support their children online at parents’ evenings. Thank you to the fantastic Digital Leaders who were very enthusiastic and their wonderful teacher, Mrs Boyles, for welcoming us. Watch out for a blog post about the visit coming soon.
Safer Internet Day 2019
Thank you and a huge well done to all of the Digital Leaders teams who were involved in activities for Safer Internet Day 2019 on 5th February. We are so impressed by all of the hard work that was put into celebrating the day all over the UK. It was amazing to see all the different ways that Digital Leaders spread awareness around this year’s theme of consent online.
Please see our blog hereabout how some Digital Leaders were involved in the Safer Internet Day event in London. A special thank you to Israa and Will who played important parts in the day and did such a great job, impressing the audience with their knowledge and enthusiasm for this year’s theme of “Our internet, our choice: Understanding consent in a digital world.”
Please see our blog herehighlighting creative ways that some Digital Leaders teams told us they celebrated Safer Internet 2019 in their schools.
Many congratulations to Digital Leaders at the following schools who shared how they celebrated Safer Internet Day. From assemblies to puppet shows, a huge well done to all of you for being part of Safer Internet Day 2019!
High Close School
Halesbury School
Abbey Primary School
Norwich High Prep School
Ashleigh Primary School and Nursery
Felsted school
Northampton High School
Arthur Bugler Primary School
The Lady Eleanor Holles School
The Flying Bull Academy
Gayhurst School
Reed’s School
Lord Wandsworth College
Badminton School
Llanischen Fach Primary
Cathays High
St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School
St Cyres School
Mullion Community Primary School
St Paul’s Junior School
Millfield Preparatory School
Portsmouth High School
The Hawthorns School
St Stephen’s Junior School
Kings Hill School
Vinehall School
Bangor Academy and Sixth Form College
St Mary’s Grammar School
St Mary’s CE Primary
South Hampstead High School
Notre Dame Senior School
Philips High School
King’s High School
St Stephen’s Junior School
St Mary of the Angels
St John Bosco RC Primary School
Selston High School
King’s Ely Junior School
Reigate St Mary’s Preparatory and Choir School
Kaizen Primary School
Sarah Bonnell School
Hoxton Garden Primary
Orchard Primary School
Southwold Primary School
Newcastle High School for Girls Junior School
St Stephen’s Junior School
Bredon School
Gresham’s School
Woodford County High School
Acklam Grange School
Sawtry Village Academy
And congratulations to any school that we have missed that celebrated Safer Internet Day 2019!
We love to celebrate Digital Leaders on their hard work, so please share with us what your Digital Leaders team have been up to. Email [email protected] or tweet us @ChildnetDL #ChildnetDL
Excellent stuff, Northwood Park Primary School, De Bohun Primary School and Little Chalfont Primary School Digital Leaders!
We spotted that the work of your Digital Leaders is mentioned on your school websites! We often see great online safety pages on school websites and think they are a fantastic way to point parents in the direction of useful resources. School websites are a great opportunity to get Digital Leaders involved in the whole-school approach to online safety and an efficient way to let parents know what the Digital Leaders are involved in within school. To get some inspiration for your school to showcase your Digital Leaders teams on your websites, please see their sites here:
Well done to the Digital Leader teams from the following schools who have recently completed their online training!
Bromley High School- Seniors
Burton CofE Primary School
Caldershaw Primary School- 3rd cohort!
Dulwich College Beijing
Grainville School
Hart Memorial Primary School
Marks Gate Junior School
Monkhouse Primary School- 2nd cohort!
Northwood Park Primary School
Preston Primary School
Saltersgate Junior School
South Hampstead High School- Senior
St Peter’s School
Stanburn Primary School- 2nd cohort!
The Royal Masonic School for Girls- 2nd cohort!
The Weston Road Academy
If your school would like to share what your Digital Leaders team have been up to then please email [email protected] to be included in the next update!
Activities to try with your Digital Leaders this month
Enter the Childnet Film Competition 2019– The 10th annual Childnet Film Competition has launched and we are so excited to hear about Digital Leaders’ entries. The competition is a fantastic opportunity to reach a large audience with your online safety message. Have a read through the information for entering hereand make sure to complete the module on the platform after entering to let us know all about your film and earn a badge and points.
Complete the evaluation survey- The 2019 Digital Leaders survey is live on both the primary and secondary platforms. We would like to receive your feedback so that we can keep on improving the programme.
