Welcome back to a new school year, we hope you had a great summer break and are eager and inspired to make impact as a Digital Leader in your school and community!
In this blog we have put together some top tips to help Digital Leaders make a great start to the school year (as well as providing some handy information for teachers), helping you to kick off a fantastic year of online safety education in your whole school.
Our back to school top tips:
Make activities and sessions relevant to your audience
Why not get the other pupils in your school to think about some key questions like: What did you do online over the holidays? Have you or any of your friends experienced anything online over the holidays that other pupils or parents would benefit from hearing? Make the activities you run in school engaging and effective by keeping them relevant and up to date!
A great way to start your first team meeting of the new term is to discuss the things you did online over the holidays, as well as what you learnt about life online.
Engage the new pupils at your school
This September your school will have lots of new pupils coming in to year 7 and it is a great opportunity to let them know where they can go for support with questions about online safety. Why not use this as a chance to think about what you have learnt as a Digital Leader, and how you can share this with them?
Remember: you have a really important role which can inspire the new pupils to want to become Digital Leaders too!
Plan your activities for the whole year
The start of the school year is a great opportunity to plan for the whole year ahead, and to make sure that you are having the biggest impact possible in your school throughout the year! Take a look at our online safety calendar to pick out the campaigns that your team would like to involve your school in (link to online safety calendar).
Inspire your peers by becoming a Digital Champion
Exciting news alert: We are recruiting even more Digital Leaders to join our team of Digital Champions! Our Digital Champions are a group of Secondary pupils who are great examples of what it means to be a Digital Leader. They are ambassadors of the programme and act as our youth representative board.
If you are a qualified Digital Leader, would like to support us in creating modules and developing the programme and help us to make sure the programme is reflective of young people’s experiences, then please apply!
Take a look at last year’s Digital Champion profiles and look out for more information about how to apply to be a Digital Champion in the next few weeks!
Get creative
There are so many different ways to share knowledge in your school community and we always love to see how original and creative Digital Leaders can be.
Last year Digital Leaders made t-shirts, hosted Digital Picnics, made films and so much more!
For the new school year we challenge you to be creative in sharing your online safety knowledge and keep us up to date with what you achieve to be featured in our blog and newsletter.
Collaborate with other Digital Leaders across the UK
We encourage you as Digital Leaders to share ideas and work together in your teams (and with your teachers) to maximise your impact!
The ‘Community’ section of the Digital Leaders platforms is also a great space to share your ideas and top tips, or to get advice from other Digital Leaders. As the new term starts make sure you keep an eye out for our ‘Prize Posts’, these are new Community posts from the Childnet Digital Leaders Team where you can get some great rewards if your share your opinions on topics and questions set by the Childnet Digital Leaders Team.
Keep up to date
Stay up to date with what is happening in the Digital Leaders community. We will now be sending our monthly community newsletter to Secondary Digital Leaders as well as Digital Leader teachers. We love to keep you updated and share the accomplishments of Digital Leaders!
Information for Group Leaders
Let us know if your Digital Leaders have their own top tips or want to share what they have planned for the year ahead! Tweet us @childnetDL or email [email protected].
We can’t wait for our next Digital Leaders Regional Event on 25th November which is taking place in Cardiff and is an opportunity for Digital Leaders across the region to collaborate with each other. Get in touch at [email protected] if your Digital Leader team would like to attend the event.
The Digital Leaders team have developed a guest login feature to give interested schools and organisations an opportunity to experience a taster of the Childnet Digital Leaders Programme.
What is on the guest login?
The guest login contains a sample module, a look at the digital leader dashboard and gives you first-hand experience of what a digital leader will see when logging in to the platform.
Those who apply for a guest login will have access to a 14-day sneak peek of our exciting gamified platform. Once you have tried this out we would love to have you as part of the programme so that you can start recruiting your first cohort of Digital Leaders!
Although the guest login is designed to give you a taste of life as part of the programme, the full platform has so much more to offer.
How do I get a guest login?
To apply for a guest login, simply go to digital-leaders.childnet.com/register-interest and register your interest! Once you have provided your full name, school and email address we can provide you with a login.
When you have filled in the form, please send an email with the subject “Guest Login” to [email protected] to allow us to grant you temporary access. Be sure to include your full name, school or organisation’s name and your work email address.
If you have any questions or would like to know more about the programme, please get in touch.
The Childnet Digital Champions are Bella from Gresham’s Senior School, Erin from Bredon School, Jess from Selston High School and Maryam from Woodford County High School. The Digital Champions had their kick-off day on 22nd January at Facebook HQ and this day was a chance for the young people to get to know each other, find out more about their role as a Digital Champion and lots lots more! The Digital Champions will be available for other Digital Leaders to consult with at our Regional Events. Here is a blog written by them which gives you more of an insight into what they got up to on kick-off day.
Jess – How did we become Digital Champions?
Hello! I’m Jess, one of your Digital Champions for 2019. Oh, and also, welcome to our first blog! Here, you’ll find information for what we are doing next, as well as all of the exciting things we get up to! However, you are probably still wondering what on earth a Digital Champion is and how we got here so, let me explain.
The Digital Champions are a group of people who are part of the Childnet Digital Leaders group. We represent you and are a voice for your thoughts and feelings on ways to develop the Digital Leaders programme. Not only do we help improve the programme, but we also have a say in your protection online and how to make the most of our Internet. As we are the first ever group of Digital Champions, this is an exciting opportunity for all of us and the Childnet team.
Got an idea of how to better the Digital Leaders programme? Talk to us. Got an exciting idea for a new module? We’re the ones to call! Want to help improve the safety of young people online? Hello, we’re here! We want to spread the message of positive internet use far and wide and, with your help and input, we can create a better online experience for everyone.
We are approachable, friendly and responsible. We want to inspire you to make a difference in your school or area and help people see the internet in a positive light.
The thing is, we didn’t just end up here for no reason. We had to go through a process of interviews and applications before finally being told that we were the select group of people chosen to be Childnet’s youth board. It started with the application. We had to fill out an online application about what we hope to achieve and why we want to be a Digital Champion, which we all did and passed that stage. Next was the interview. Soon after finding out we had passed the application stage, an interview on Skype was arranged. Although the connection was a bit dodgy at times, we were asked a series of questions and given five minutes to complete a task. The task being to design a session and what the benefits would be. Eventually, we found out that we had the job! I was one of the few Digital Champions in the UK! We were invited to Facebook HQ in London for a Kick-Off Day, which was low-key AMAZING! We hope to keep you updated on all of the other exciting opportunities we have for you and all of the things we get up to!
Bella – What are we going to do as Digital Champions?
As Digital Champions, it is our responsibility to be the liaison between the Childnet team and Digital Leaders on the ground. We will take opinions from our own, and other, groups of Digital Leaders and use them to influence the production of modules that are useful and, most importantly, relevant, to the specifics of issues young people face. We do this so that the platform can better prepare Digital Leaders for informing their schools and other students in a productive manner. We will be the bridge and voice for comments from the participants of the programme, and we will also be involved in reaching people on a regional basis in the future. Overall, we want to make the programme as effective and as engaging as it can be in assistance to the team at Childnet.
Erin –What did we get up to on kick-off day?
When we reached Facebook HQ they took us upstairs and said we could help ourselves to any food. At first we were scared and took only two things each. Soon, we reached the room we were going to spend the majority of our day in. We sat down and all introduced ourselves to each other and then talked about what we were doing for the rest of the day. Soon after, we met Sophie England who spoke about her role at Facebook. We asked her a bunch of questions, some were too technical for her to answer so we wrote them down and gave it to her to get someone else to answer. After a long time of awkward silences, the atmosphere became lively and we started to laugh, we also talked about our strengths and weaknesses and how we can all bring something new to the team. Then, after talking about what we would be doing as Digital Champions, we went for lunch. There was a whole buffet and it told you what was healthy and gluten free. After we had lunch we had a tour and took pictures. We saw some amazing things and amazing technology. After the tour we finished up and were handed some gift bags from Childnet and a bag of pick and mix. Then, at three o’clock, we finished up and said our good byes. It was such an experience and I’m so glad to be a part of it.
Maryam – What are our next steps?
As Digital Champions our main goals are to inspire this generation on how to protect themselves from the dangers that are lurking within the internet. Of course, it is impossible to ban certain parts of the internet, yet if we can help and understand these it will be easier to ensure our safety on the internet. We’ve planned to meet with Digital Leaders across the country and we’ve already began planning a new module for the Digital Leaders Programme! Henceforth, this will hopefully enable others who share our burning passion for helping those in any way they can and inspire them to also become a Digital Champion after seeing some of our work.
Childnet Digital Leaders made a huge splash at this year’s Safer Internet Day event at the BT Centre in central London. Safer Internet Day is organised each year in the UK by the UK Safer Internet Centre. Digital Leaders from Hoxton Garden Primary, Kaizen Primary School, Mayfield School, Orchard Primary School, Sarah Bonnell School, Southwold Primary School and Titus Salt School all attended the event along with Dr Challoner’s High School and Dundonald Primary School. They facilitated the day, delivered the key note speech, spoke on the youth panel and ran workshops to educate attendees on how to be safe online, while focusing on this year’s theme of ‘Our internet, our choice: understanding consent in a digital world’.
Israa from Sarah Bonnell School was an incredible youth host during the entire afternoon, introducing speakers to the stage including Minister for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Margot James, Department for Education Minister for Children and Families, Nadhim Zahawi, and BT’s CEO of Consumer Brands, Marc Allera. She demonstrated her good humour and bubbly personality all to a highly professional standard – awesome job, Israa!
Will from Titus Salt School was our youth keynote speaker. He had the whole auditorium’s attention and during his speech he was confident, articulate and inspirational! Not only this, but he was also interviewed by BBC Own It and BBC News and must have come away feeling like a true celebrity – you were absolutely fantastic; well done, Will!
Mayfield School look at permission online
Mayfield School’s workshop looked at the different ways people give permission for their data to be used online. They asked visitors to vote, on a sliding scale, on what sorts of data they were happy to share and how happy they were to share that data on various different platforms. They had a ‘True or False’ data quiz which, whilst being incredibly fun, also surprised many visitors with its answers! An example of a statement was from WhatsApp’s privacy policy and said ‘Once a message has been delivered, it no longer resides on our servers’. Many visitors were amazed that this was true! Margot James also visited their workshop and engaged in some interesting discussions with them.
Kaizen Primary School explore how we give consent online
Kaizen Primary School’s workshop asked guests to respond to a series of statements about online consent, and then to explore different ways that we can ask for, give and receive consent. They also asked guests to record on a Padlet why consent is important to them and where they would expect to give consent. You can see the range of responses at the following link: https://padlet.com/admin413/SID2019
Sarah Bonnell School discuss different types of consent
Sarah Bonnell School ran a workshop to discuss the different types of consent we might encounter online, and then used an online interactive platform to submit how you could best respond to different scenarios.
Viridis Schools Federation get the guests thinking about gaming
The Viridis Schools Federation is made up of Hoxton Garden Primary, Orchard Primary School and Southwold Primary School.
These three schools used a gaming scenario to ask guests to decide how issues of consent online can make them feel and the emotions it can cause. They were then asked to consider what they could do to make sure consent is asked for. They also ran a great quiz on online issues!
We also saw a youth panel consisting of six young people, four of whom were Digital Leaders. These were Harriet from Kaizen Primary, Homyra from Mayfield School, Zahra from Sarah Bonnell and Morgan from Southwold Primary. They all did a brilliant job talking about consent and answering questions from Kate Russell, a BBC journalist – a great effort and confidence shown by all!
Digital Leaders interview the UK’s Chief Medical Officer
Israa and Maariyah, Digital Leaders from Sarah Bonnell School, were invited by BBC News to interview Professor Dame Sally Davies, the UK Chief Medical Officer, about the official guidance released about children’s screen time. They did a great job – well done to both of you!
