Close icon

Young people learn about reporting at the Cardiff Digital Leaders Regional Event

Published: 3rd December 2019

Primary and secondary pupils from across Cardiff attended an exclusive online safety training event led by Childnet’s expert team.

Last year, following requests from young people on the programme, Childnet introduced Regional Events. These have been successfully run across the UK as an opportunity for young people to share ideas about educating their peers on online safety, and to learn more from the Childnet team.

We held our fourth Childnet Digital Leaders Regional Event at St John’s College, Cardiff on 25th November. It was a great opportunity for Digital Leaders and other young people from across Cardiff 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 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.

Students in discussion

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 and Marie 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.

Amy from Childnet with students

We were really impressed with the excellent pitches and creative ideas, including plans for workshops where young people would match the report buttons with the services they are found on and drama activities where young people would explore in which circumstances to make a report. After much deliberation, the Piranhas chose the yellow group as the winners! The judges really enjoyed their idea for an interactive workshop with multiple elements including a quiz, poster and video.

Take a look at the winning group with their certificates below.

Cardiff Regional Event Piranha Pitch winners

Testimonials

Danielle Antha, Project Manager of the Childnet Digital Leaders Programme, said:

“The Childnet team were delighted with the engagement of Cardiff pupils at our fourth Regional Event. They provided thoughtful and unique contributions to the event, and their presentations were full of character and of such an excellent standard that the judges had a very difficult job in choosing a winner. The young people present should be proud of the work they have done; they are all shining examples of how seriously young people in Cardiff take this issue within the online safety space and how hard they are working to help others be safe online as well.”

Aneira, a Digital Leader from Cathays High, said:

“I thought it was really fun and it’s nice to know that adults want to know children’s opinions instead of always asking the other adults. It was nice to engage with students who are younger than me and teach them a little bit about what I know and them teach me things that I don’t know.”

A massive thank you to St John’s College, Cardiff for hosting and to Mrs Howells 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!