Do you want to make real change? Do you want to have a chance to talk to industry about what young people want? Do you want an opportunity to shape the future of the Digital Leaders Programme? If this sounds like you then apply to be a Digital Champion today! You can find out more about the role and the application process in our information pack.
The Childnet Digital Leaders Programme is proud to be a youth-led and youth focused programme. However, we are continually striving to make it even better – this is where our Digital Champions come in!
Our Digital Champions represent the entire Digital Leader community from across the UK. They meet and collaborate with other Digital Leaders outside of their school and they are Childnet’s ‘go-to’ group for new and exciting developments on the platform and the programme. If you have great ideas about developing new modules and activities on the platform and would like first-hand access to fun and engaging opportunities, then being a Digital Champion is the role for you!
In addition to all of these awesome perks, Digital Champions may have the opportunity to be involved in regional and national events as well as speak with and give advice to big tech companies and schools on how to keep other young people safe online. Digital Champions also receive top class support from the Childnet Digital Leaders team and other Digital Champions too throughout.
You can find out more about our current Digital Champions here and their involvement in Safer Internet Day 2022 here.
All we ask from you is that you commit for 1 year from December 2022 – November 2023. During this year, we would require a minimum commitment of one video call per month as well as additional participation work – this shouldn’t take any more than 6 hours per month. For more information on this, please check out the information pack.
If you answered yes to all of the questions at the start, and believe you have what it takes to become a Digital Champion, then please fill out the consent forms included in the information pack, fill out the online form at https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/X8T7TRQ, and return all your signed consent forms to [email protected] by Friday 11th November.
We are super excited to hear from you and receive your applications. Good luck!
Danielle, Fabian, and Kerease from the Childnet Digital Leaders team have recently visited several Digital Leader schools across the country.
We have been hugely impressed by what Digital Leaders teams have already achieved as well as the exciting plans they have been coming up with.
It’s been fantastic to see how engaged Digital Leaders are and how brilliant the support has been from their teachers.
We have had some fascinating discussion about the most important issues affecting young people online and received plenty of useful feedback for how to improve the programme.
St Patrick’s College
We were thrilled to have caught up with one of our Digital Champions, Dominik, at St Patrick’s College.
During his time with us, Dominik has been involved in many exciting projects. He took part in our live event for Safer Internet Day 2022, provided a voiceover for our video introducing the new Digital Leaders training platform and even played a vital part in this year’s Childnet Film Competition.
We have even more exciting plans in the pipeline for Dominik and other Digital Champions over the next year.
The team is hoping to meet as a group more often going forward but have already shared their learning with family members including how to manage online friendships, and have also improved their own communication, teamwork, and leadership skills.
Arena Academy
The Arena Academy Digital Leaders team provided us with a whole portfolio of the work they’ve been doing, such as reaching #1 on the leaderboard and running activities for Safer Internet Day including an assembly, the #PlayYourPart poster competition and a live Q&A session.
The team is made up of a range of ages, with the senior Digital Leaders helping welcome the newer members to the team.
They meet every week and are eager to connect with other schools – so much so that they are planning to run sessions in local primary schools to pass the beacon of online safety to the next generation!
Selston High School
Our visit to Selston High School afforded us the opportunity to see another of our Digital Champions, Jess, who visited Brussels as our representative in the Safer Internet Forum.
She has supported our newer Digital Champions, and even won the Childnet Film Competition! The team has been focusing on progressing through the modules but have lots of exciting plans for the future, including planning workshops and linking online safety lessons to help with recruiting their next cohort of Digital Leaders.
They are also busy putting together a list of websites and a cyberbullying worksheet to offer further support to pupils.
Holte School
The Holte School Digital Leaders team has been hard at work helping other pupils form healthy internet habits by putting up posters around school and writing pages for the school website, featuring online safety tips and guides, as well as how to get in touch with the team.
The team meet regularly and their peers can reach them by email or in their regular lunchtime drop-in sessions. They often help peers with solutions to cyberbullying, untrustworthy contact and fake news.
We’re thrilled that they have also held an online safety meeting for parents and carers covering a range of topics, including age-appropriate gaming.
Weekly newsletters are sent with online safety tips and more information about the team, and the whole team are eager to claim top spot on the Digital Leaders leaderboard!
Priory Academy
We were shown a thoroughly entertaining and educational presentation that the Priory Academy Digital Leaders team have been showing during form times.
It included a (very difficult) quiz that covered a wide range of topics including privacy, location sharing, fake news, relationships online, cyberbullying, and top tips.
Their learning has also been shared with family and friends with very positive reactions – parents and carers were very proud of their Digital Leaders for showing such initiative!
The team is also holding a schoolwide poster competition for individuals or groups using knowledge from the presentation, and students know they can always reach out to their Digital Leaders using the details provided
Childnet were even given some great ideas on how to expand and advertise more effectively!
We had a wonderful time visiting our Digital Leader schools and talking to them about the programme and wider online safety issues.
Thank you to all of the teachers and Digital Leaders who welcomed us so warmly to your schools – good luck to you all and keep us updated with what you’re up to!
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 by emailing [email protected] and tweeting @ChildnetDL.
Thank you to everyone who was involved with and who supported the ‘Digital Picnic’ at King’s Ely Junior school before the end of term!
Dan Everest, who is Head of Key Stage 2 and Computing and Digital Innovation at King’s Ely, organises the family-orientated event each year with enthusiastic support from the school’s Year 7 and 8 Childnet Digital Leaders.
King’s Ely have been unable to hold a ‘Digital Picnic’ for the last two years due to the pandemic, so it was fantastic to see this year’s event so well attended by Year 3-8 pupils, along with their families and carers.
The ‘Digital Picnic’ is organised for several reasons:
▪️ To celebrate the students’ digital safety learning that occurs in school with parents, families and carers.
▪️ To enable pupils, parents, families and carers and staff to share digital tips and advice with everyone in attendance.
▪️ To promote open and family-orientated discussions about digital safety.
▪️ To provide parents, families and carers with advice about apps and games, all delivered by the Digital Leaders.
King’s Ely have supported the Childnet Digital Leaders initiative for many years.
The school’s Digital Leaders ran information stalls at the event, where they had hand-out documents and PowerPoint presentations for families about their app or game. The students were ready to answer any questions or concerns that parents or indeed pupils had.
Mr Everest said: “Our Digital Picnic is an important event on the school calendar. There were a record number of parents and students in attendance this year and the feedback has been so positive.
“The idea of working together and understanding the generational differences between digital use is really powerful and the real experts in the room were the Digital Leaders. What a fantastic effort everyone!”
As ambassadors for the Childnet Digital Leaders programme, the Digital Champions form our youth representative board.
Helping the Childnet Digital Leaders team to ensure that the programme is youth led, they represent a youth voice which is essential to the programme’s success.
They also support with module development, content creation, events and consultation, as well as representing the programme in the wider online safety community.
What activities have you taken part in as a Childnet Digital Champion?
Lucy: I have been lucky enough to be involved in many activities. I have taken part in two Safer Internet Days now, where for one I was part of a youth panel in a live event for UK Safer Internet Centre. I have also done a few calls with MPs to talk about the importance of online safety and what can be done about it, which have been really interesting! As Digital Champions, we also do regular focus groups with various companies such as Facebook which are always very informative and eye-opening!
How has the Digital Leaders programme benefited your school?
Aimee: The Childnet Digital Leaders Programme has been beneficial to my school as it has given students the opportunity to take responsibility and learn about digital safety so that they are able to teach their friends, parents and teachers about a subject they are passionate on. It has even benefited those not directly in the programme because students in the school feel comfortable talking to Digital Leaders about issues or concerns they have with the online world.
Childnet Digital Champion Aimee
Did you enjoy being part of Safer Internet Day 2022?
Cosima: Yes, very much so! It is great to be involved every year, but this year especially was really brilliant as the topic was so relevant to young people. I think by having a specific focus on gaming and relationships online it not only made everything we were talking about extremely relevant to the current issues, but also made it super fun to talk about. Being able to share experiences and advice with those who are not already so aware is such a rewarding experience as you know that it is going to positively benefit so many young people – especially with the interview this year reaching almost 2.5 million people! It is also as always lovely to meet and address so many new people and old friends and get to hear their views and opinions too. The biggest highlight for me was definitely the Safer Internet Day MP call as we really got to get into what issues were going on, why they were happening, and most importantly what could be done to change them!
Safer Internet Day reached more young people than ever – how did it feel to play your part?
Christtian: It feels great to know that I have made an impact in spreading awareness of Safer Internet Day. It is also nice to know that the people that you are telling about Safer Internet Day are, in fact, doing something about it, sharing it, spreading the word, etc. It feels brilliant knowing that more young people than ever before have been impacted by Safer Internet Day 2022 and knowing that I played a part in that as a Digital Champion.
What is the most important issue in online safety at the moment?
Alisa: I believe that online safety is such a wide topic that there’ll never be a way to choose a single problem as the most important. However, in my opinion, one problem that is caused by lack of awareness is the most important. That is sharing too much personal information online with strangers without thinking of the consequences. These actions taken by young people can lead to them getting in a variety of dangerous situations.
Childnet Digital Leaders made a huge impression on Safer Internet Day 2022 – even receiving congratulatory letters from MPs!
Once again, young people were at the heart of the day, which is celebrated globally in February each year to promote the safe and positive use of digital technology.
Digital Leaders and Digital Champions helped to ensure that the voice of young people was championed in a range of events across the UK, by:
Joining a youth panel for the Safer Internet Day 2022 livestream event at BT Tower
Taking part in media interviews which were broadcast across 70 radio stations, reaching a potential audience of 2.4 million people
Amongst the Childnet Digital Leaders involved was Alisa, who joined MPs for a Q&A event to share her experiences of being online and her recommendations for how this space can be improved for young people.
Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion, was particularly impressed, and took the time to send Alisa a letter congratulating her on being involved in the day:
Dear Alisa,
I am writing to you as your MP to offer my warmest congratulations on your participation as a Digital Leader at the Safer Internet Day Q&A event earlier this month.
I’m very sorry I couldn’t join you, but I wanted to let you know that I’m incredibly proud of young people in Brighton – such as yourself – for sharing their experiences with technology and the online world.
Conversations around online safety are particularly crucial for children and young people who have had to spend much of their time online over the past two years due to the pandemic – and thank you for stepping up and showing such leadership.
The Childnet Digital Leaders Programme is an excellent opportunity to empower young people and their peers to talk about online safety in schools, and for MPs to hear from about real life experiences and be better informed to make important policy decisions that will affect future generations.
Thank you again for your hard work in this area, and I wish you all the best for the remainder of your training programme and beyond.
Do you have a passion for promoting online safety? Do you have a desire to help other young people? Do you have knowledge of the Childnet Digital Leaders online platform? Then this exciting new role is the one for you!
The Childnet Digital Leaders Programme is proud to be a youth-led and youth focused programme. However, we are continually striving to make it even better – this is where our Digital Champions come in!
Our Digital Champions represent the entire Digital Leader community from across the UK. They meet and collaborate with other Digital Leaders outside of their school and they are Childnet’s ‘go-to’ group for new and exciting developments on the platform and the programme. If you have great ideas about developing new modules and activities on the platform and would like first-hand access to fun and engaging opportunities, then being a Digital Champion is the role for you!
In addition to all of these awesome perks, Digital Champions may have the opportunity to be involved in regional and national events as well as speak with and give advice to big tech companies and schools on how to keep other young people safe online – wow!
You may be thinking this is a little daunting? But have no fear, as you will receive top class support from the Childnet Digital Leaders team and other Digital Champions too throughout.
You can find out more about our current Digital Champions here and their involvement in Safer Internet Day 2021 here and here.
All we ask from you is that you commit for 1 year from December 2021-November 2022. During this year, we would require a minimum commitment of one video call per month as well as additional participation work – this shouldn’t take any more than 6 hours per month. For more information on this, please check out the information pack.
If you answered yes to all of the questions at the start, and believe you have what it takes to become a Digital Champion, then please fill out the application form included in the information pack, fill out the online form at https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/YFQQSKH (you may need to copy and paste link), and return all your signed consent forms by Friday 19th November.
We are super excited to hear from you and receive your applications. Good luck!
The Digital Champions are the youth ambassadors of the Childnet Digital Leaders Programme. Childnet work closely with them to ensure that the programme is youth-led, they have opportunities to represent the Digital Leader community in many ways, including at events and in consultations. You can find out more about the Digital Champions here.
In this blog we ask some of the Digital Champions about their experience in the role this year, including highlights and how they have found taking part in the group throughout the COVID-19 school closures. Thank you to Cosima, Jess and Aimee for their insightful and thoughtful responses, which you can read below.
What has been your highlight of your Digital Champion role this year?
Cosima: For me my biggest highlight was either presenting our charter at Westminster to the MPs or talking to Baroness Nicky Morgan at the BT centre event on Safer Internet Day!
It was such a unique experience that not many people my age would get to do!
At first talking to the MPs was a little daunting but as the day progressed I became a lot more fluent in what I was saying, I guess practice makes perfect! In addition, once Aimee went on to go and do her speech, and I had to do everything solo, I felt kind of proud of myself for being able to do that!
As it I was talking about something I was passionate about when it came to doing our stand at the event, I found it quite rewarding in a way to get the message across to so many different representatives of different companies. Oh and a bonus was that I was on the news hehe!
How have you found your Digital Champion role throughout the COVID-19 pandemic?
Jess: During the COVID-19 pandemic, our lives have had to adapt in many ways, including the way we work and communicate. Although we haven’t been able to meet up in person a huge amount this year, by communicating online, the Digital Champions team has been able to keep in touch and continue to make a change. Personally, I feel as though being able to communicate more online has brought me closer to the team and made me feel like I am making a bigger impact with what I do. With more people using the online world as a way to chat with friends and work from home, we have been working hard to support our peers and other young people who are spending more time online and make sure they are safe and well. I feel like my role during this time has made me a more well-rounded person, and has helped me develop my communication and teamwork skills, despite only communicating through a screen. The rest of the team have done an awesome job of keeping us all informed and updated throughout this time, and I have felt more confident in my role than ever before. Although this has been an uncertain time for us all, I have felt more connected with not only my friends, but the rest of the Digital Champions and Childnet team and through more online communication, I have felt a bigger part of the team and a more confident person.
What would you say to someone thinking about applying to be a Digital Champion next year?
Aimee: If I could say one thing to someone who is thinking of applying to be a digital champion, I would say don’t allow any feelings of doubt, worry or anything else put you off it because it has been my best experience! It feels like a close family and you get to take part in a range of new and enjoyable opportunities that teach you so many skills as well as putting you in really influential positions with the ability to help and teach many people from all over. I’ve loved it so much and I would recommend it to everyone so, to everyone reading this, definitely try it!! 🙂
Thank you to our Digital Champions for sharing their thoughts on how they have found their role over the year. If you are interested in becoming a Digital Champion next year, then keep your eyes peeled for the next round of applications due to open in September.
As the school year has come to an end and summer holidays have begun, it is a great time for us to look back over the year at the Digital Leaders Programme. Take a look through this second part of a two-part roundup of the year including programme highlights and impact, as well as some of the brilliant achievements of Digital Leaders! Click here to look at part one.
Digital Champions
This year we had 7 Digital Champions on the project, and you can read more about them here. The Digital Champions act as ambassadors for the programme and were involved in various additional activities throughout the year. Within their role, they supported the programme in many ways, including representing the Digital Leader community at events (see below), as well as providing feedback on new modules.
Take a look at the upcoming guest blog post by this year’s Digital Champions where they reflect on their role within the programme. If you would like to apply to become a Digital Champion next year then keep your eyes on our blog and newsletter for information on applications opening next term!
We have kept in touch regularly with the Digital Champions as they have continued in their role throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Thank you to the Champions for continuing to be active in their role and not letting school closures get in the way of their Digital Champion responsibilities! The screenshot below is from our most recent video call with the Champions, when we had a Zoom party to celebrate the end of the year. We also said farewell and best wishes to Bella and Niah who are leaving their Digital Champion roles!
Digital Leader represented the UK at SIF Brussels 2019
One of our brilliant Digital Champions, Jess, was selected to represent the UK at the Safer Internet Forum in Brussels in November. Jess was selected to join the Better Internet for Kids (BIK) Youth Panel, made up of around 25 young people from different countries across Europe. In the lead up to the event, the group collaborated on a campaign to spread their message around the forum’s theme of ‘From Online Violence to Digital Respect’. At the forum they held discussions on online safety topics, led a youth session and facilitated roundtables of attendees. Read more about Jess’ experience attending the forum here.
Safer Internet Day 2020
Young people from across the UK came together to celebrate positive use of the internet on Safer Internet Day 2020. The theme for this year was exploring identity online and young people celebrated the theme in incredible and creative ways. Many Digital Leaders took a lead in activities in their school; running assemblies, creating informative videos to share with peers and running surveys are just a few examples of the wonderful ways that Digital Leaders raised awareness of online safety. Take a look at the tweets below for some more examples of how Digital Leaders celebrated the day across the country.
Digital Leaders met government and internet industry for Safer Internet Day 2020
The UK Safer Internet Centre hosted the annual Safer Internet Day event in London which was attended by representatives from the internet industry as well as services which support young people, government and policy. Groups of Digital Leaders from five schools attended the event and ran activities to get the guests thinking about the topic of exploring identity online. The pupils also asked questions to a live panel of representatives from organisations which support young people. The Digital Leaders played a crucial role in the day and ensured that young people’s online lives were the focus of the day. The youth host and key-note speaker were also Digital Leaders, Homyrah and Aimee, who both engaged the audience brilliantly and spoke with passion about the theme. Take a look at our roundup of the Safer Internet Day London event here.
Young People’s Charter for Safer Internet Day 2020
The UK Safer Internet Centre, in consultation with Digital Leaders across the UK, created the Young People’s Charter for Safer Internet Day 2020. The charter outlines four clear demands for the government to protect young people online, and support them to express their online identities. Digital Champions, Aimee and Cosima, presented the charter to MPs at Westminster on Safer Internet Day and spoke to them about the importance of the key demands for young people. Read more about Digital Leaders involvement in the Young People’s Charter here.
Programme Impact
Earlier this year the Digital Leaders Programme reached some new milestones! The programme has now had over 1,000 subscriptions and over 4,000 young people have qualified as Digital Leaders! Read more about the journey to reaching these milestones here.
This month we released our 2020 Impact Report. It is really important for us to evaluate the impact of the programme each year so that we can measure it’s efficacy, strive to keep improving and share how vital youth-led online safety education is. Take a look at our annual Impact Report 2020 webpage here or the two-page Impact Report document here.
Digital Leader tweets of the year
We love to see Digital Leaders featuring on their schools’ Twitter. Take a look below at some of our favourite Digital Leader tweets from this year.
There have been lots of programme highlights over the year and many more Digital Leader achievements! Thank you to all of the Digital Leaders who have taken part in the programme this year and to all of the supportive teachers running the programme at their schools. We look forward to continuing to develop the programme over the next academic year and hearing about the fantastic ways that Digital Leaders are impacting their communities!
If you have any questions about running the Childnet Digital Leaders Programme in your school, please do get in touch at [email protected].
As the school year has come to an end and summer holidays have begun, it is a great time for us to look back at the activities that have happened as part of the Digital Leaders Programme over the last year. Take a read through this two-part roundup of the year including the programme’s highlights and impact, as well as some of the brilliant achievements of Digital Leaders!
Adapting the programme through COVID-19 school closures
The end of this school year has been very different to other years due to the COVID–19 school closures. Back in March when the closures were announced, we adapted the programme to ensure that the young people were able to continue their online safety education and feel part of the Digital Leader community whilst learning from home. We have also extended all current subscriptions to cover the period of time that schools were closed and will review this extension again when the new school term begins. Take a look at our blog post about how the programme has continued to run over the last few months, ensuring that online safety stayed fresh in Digital Leaders’ minds while spending more time at home.
End of Term Leaderboard
Congratulations to the Digital Leader teams from Barnfield Primary School and Bellerbys College Cambridge who finished the school year top of the primary and secondary Leaderboards! Well done for your hard work earning points on the training platform this term and making you way to the top of the Leaderboard! We are excited to see which teams make it to the top next term.
New training modules
This year we released nine new training modules across our online platforms! Six of these modules were related to specific events such as Safer Internet Day and Anti Bullying Week, so were available on the platform exclusively for a limited period of time in the lead up to these events. These modules are designed to encourage Digital Leaders to engage with these campaigns. The other three modules are bonus training modules, two of which are for primary aged pupils and one is for secondary pupils and are on the topics of Safer Gaming and Data and Privacy respectively. These modules were developed in response to feedback from Digital Leaders, around what they what like to learn about on the programme. Thank you to JFS, Forest School and Sellincourt Primary, who were involved in creating these modules. The ‘Safer Gaming’ module was developed in collaboration with Roblox.
We’ve got some really exciting developments next year regarding our training modules so do keep your eyes peeled on our newsletter for more information!
Cardiff Regional Event
In November we had our fourth Digital Leaders Regional Event! This time the Childnet team travelled to St John’s College Junior School in Cardiff to host a Digital Leaders Regional Event for pupils from across the area. More than 50 young people were in attendance from several local schools. The event was an opportunity for young people to discuss online safety topics and collaborate on peer learning activities to take back to their own schools. The topic of the day was reporting, and pupils received training from Childnet’s expert team on how and what to report. To read more about the Regional Event look at our Regional Event blog post.
Industry Q&A
This year we released our first ever Industry Insider Q&A! The first edition of the series featured Laura Higgins, Director of Community Safety and Digital Civility at Roblox. Laura kindly answered some really fantastic questions that Digital Leaders had submitted. The questions covered many topics from reporting and safety in gaming to careers in tech. So many questions were submitted that we had to make the video into three parts! Thank you to all the Digital Leaders who submitted questions for the Q&A and thank you to Laura for taking the time to answer the brilliant questions. Take a look at Laura’s Q&A videos here.
Community Prize Posts
The Community part of our training platforms are an open and monitored space for Digital Leaders to discuss important online safety topics, as well as share peer-learning ideas and experiences. At the beginning of this year we introduced Community Prize Posts for secondary Digital Leaders. By engaging in these Prize Post conversations, secondary pupils are in with the chance of winning a monthly prize. Winning posts are selected from the most thoughtful, relevant and insightful of all of the responses to Prize Posts within that month. Congratulations to all of the winners throughout the year and thank you to all of the Secondary Digital Leaders who have engaged with these posts. We look forward to more thought-provoking online safety conversations on the Community next year!
As part of the Digital Leaders Programme, young people receive online safety training via gamified online training platforms. We have two standalone platforms; one for primary pupils and one for secondary pupils. These platforms differ both in learning content and some functionality. The platforms also provide access to the Digital Leader Community (on the primary platform, teachers have the option whether to activate this feature or not) which allows young people to discuss important online safety topics and collaborate with peers.
Secondary Digital Leaders
The secondary platform can be accessed by pupils remotely, and so during the COVID-19 school closures, we have encouraged Secondary Digital Leader teams to continue working through the training modules. Secondary Digital Leaders can engage with the other aspects of the programme and training platform, from engaging in discussions on the Community to watching our Industry Q&A videos. We have also encouraged Secondary Digital Leaders to take the opportunity to engage with the leadership element of the programme, starting conversations at home about online safety topics.
Primary Digital Leaders
Primary pupils are only able to access the training platform with a teacher present and so to keep online safety on Primary Digital Leader’s minds during the COVID-19 school closures, we introduced a new aspect to the programme – weekly primary activities. At the start of the school closures, we began sharing activities for teachers to in turn share with their Primary Digital Leaders, all of which can be completed independently by the students at home. A new online safety activity has been sent every week and activities have ranged from word searches to writing and drawing tasks, all designed to keep online safety on young people’s minds and to encourage conversations on the subject at home within the family. Take a look below at Oskar from Groveland Primary School’s fantastic poster in response to one of the weekly primary activities.
This year the Childnet Film Competition was adapted to make entering from home easier than ever before and proved to be a great home learning project for young people. We were delighted to see Digital Leaders enter the competition which consisted of Solo, Group and Storyboard categories. One of our Digital Leaders went on to win the Secondary solo category! Take a look at the finalists films here.
