Online Safety Day

In order to celebrate ‘Safer Internet Day 2018’ we had a whole school day, in which we took part of different activities to help us learn more about being safer on the internet.

Key Stage 1
Children in Years 1 and 2 took part in 4 different activities.

Penguin Pig
Our first activity was all about ‘Penguin Pig.’ We read the story of a little girl who is browsing on the internet and finds an advert for a Penguin Pig at the zoo. She really wants to go and see it, but doesn’t tell her parents she is going. When she gets to the zoo, she finds that instead of the Penguin Pig there is a grizzly bear who is not very friendly!

We made posters warning other children that not everything we see on the internet is real, so we must be very careful about what we believe! We learnt a catchy rhyme to help us remember:

‘The internet is super,

But some people like to trick.

So you must be a trooper and think before you click!’

Password Protectors
Our second activity was about making sure when we set up a password it is very safe. We listened to the password rap and had to talk about good ways of setting up a password. We also spoke about why it is not a good idea to share your password with your friends and strangers. We then had some information about different characters and we had to guess their password by learning about their favourite things! We were really good at it and even learnt that putting capital letters in passwords can make them stronger.

Digiduck’s Big Decision
We then moved onto reading the story of Digiduck. Digiduck had a big decision to make when someone sent him a picture of his friend Proud Pig looking a little silly. He thought it was really funny and wanted to send it to some more of his friends. Before he got the chance to do this, he fell asleep and was visited by a wise owl who showed Digiduck what the consequences of his actions would be. He saw how upset Proud Pig would be and how it would affect the way other people felt about Digiduck. We talked about why it would have been a bad choice for Digiduck to send the picture to his friends and how it would have made others feel. Lots of us had wonderful ideas about how to be a good friend online, and we learnt that it is the same as being a friend in school! We decided to write letters to Digiduck giving him some advice on how he can be a good friend to others online.

Chicken Clickin’
Our final activity was all about not talking to strangers on the internet. We read the story of a little Chick, who used the internet without an adult knowing. She felt a little bit lonely and decided that she wanted a friend, so went on the internet to find one. She took a photograph of herself and put it on the internet and waited for a friend to start talking to her. Suddenly another Chick popped up and they started chatting and became best friends! Chick decided to go and meet her friend without telling a trusted adult. When she arrived, she discovered that her friend wasn’t a chick at all…it was a fox! We spent some time taking about why it is important to make sure when we are using the internet there is an adult in the room in case we find something that gives us the ‘uh-oh’ feeling. We also spoke about not putting pictures of ourselves online and never talking to strangers.

For our activity we had lots of different scenarios and we had to decide whether the end of the story might have been different if Chick had chosen to do something different such as telling her mum or dad or making sure there was an adult in the room when she was using the internet. We all decided that if she had chosen to do any of these things, she would not have put herself in danger.

Lower Key Stage 2
Children in Years 3 and 4 took part in 4 different activities.

Self-Esteem
Our first activity was all about understanding media pressures. We talked about how images we see on social media and on TV, might have been changed and what we can do to avoid feeling pressured to change the way we look. We looked at some advertising campaigns and talked in groups about how we feel when we see the images and why the images may have been made to look a certain way. We watched a video showing us how much a picture is changed and manipulated before it looks like this. At the end of the session we had to write one thing which is important to remember when looking at images in the media, and one piece of advice we would give to our friends who is feeling sad that they don’t look the same way as their favourite celebrity.

Password Protectors
Our next activity was learning how to make safe passwords and keep them secure. We watched the password rap and spent some time talking about what things might make a good or bad password and why. We all knew why it was important not to share our passwords with anyone else. In small groups we then had to come up with our own password rap, informing children how to make a really good, strong password and why you should never use personal information. We had lots of fun performing them!

Digital Footprints
We then learnt about digital footprints and had to explain our own digital footprints. We had a group discussion about how each time we go online, we leave a ‘print.’ Our print can be seen by anyone and can never be deleted. Big companies like google can see our print and they use it to monitor what we are doing! If we are silly on the internet, this is on our digital footprint and can be seen forever. We had a think about when we are older, what things might we not want on our digital footprint. After, we were each given a footprint template and had to use it to make our own digital footprint, so we can see exactly what we are using the internet for. We had to include any games we play on, websites we visit and words we type. We couldn’t believe how much we ended up with on our footprint!

Lee and Kim
In our final activity, we learnt about how to stay safe online by watching the video ‘Lee and Kim- Animal Magic.’ In the film, Lee and Kim are playing on an online game and meet lots of other players. They start talking to them and end up meeting a ‘tiger’ who tells the children he can lead them to the treasure. The children don’t think about the fact this person is a stranger and follow the tiger. On the way, the tiger starts asking strange questions about their real names, what school they go to and where they live. Before they can answer Sid the Superhero intervenes! He tells the children that although we are playing a game, the players are still strangers and we must never give away personal information to strangers. We had to design posters warning other children about staying safe online and used Sid’s top tips to help us:

-People you don’t know are strangers. They are not always who they say they are.
-Be nice to people on the computer like you would be in the playground.
-Keep your personal information private.
-If you ever get the ‘uh-oh’ feeling, tell an adult you trust.

Upper Key Stage 2
Children in Years 5 and 6 took part in 4 different activities.

Cyberbullying
We started the day by learning about cyberbullying and how to recognise it. We talked about what the word means and how it is different to other types of bullying. We then watched a video about a boy who was being cyberbullied. We had to think about why the children were cyberbullying and how the character in the film could have dealt with the situation. We all thought he could have reported it to teachers at school.

In small groups we had to work together to complete different activities such as deciding the different behaviours which can be classed as cyberbullying and how to decide whether a comment is a joke or cyberbullying.

Peer Pressure
In our next session we were learning about peer pressure and how to define it. We then watched a video about a boy who has been pressured into being nasty to other children. We talked about why he might have felt pressured to join in, and how by joining in he was equally responsible for the bullying. We spent some time discussing who we could talk to in school if we felt pressure, and if the boy in the film had done this, how it may have changed the outcome.

In our small groups we had some cards with different situations on them about social media and peer pressure, and we had to come up with answers and advice as a group. We then reported back to the class and found it really interesting to hear other peoples’ ideas. We talked about the positives and negatives of our ideas and came up with further solutions as a class.

We then had to devise a slogan to help people who feel peer pressure. We had to make them catchy and eye grabbing! Using our slogans, we were able to design posters informing other children about peer pressure and how they can deal with it.

Self-esteem
In our next session, we were learning about how life appears online, may not be a true reflection of reality. We started off by talking about the statement ‘when you go online, you feel better about yourself.’ We had to decide if we agreed or disagreed with the statement, and then explain why we thought that.

We then watched videos of 3 children who were talking about how they feel when they go online, and how using social media can sometimes make them feel sad.

After, we had four pictures which were profile pictures that children have used on social media. We had to talk about why the children may have chosen these pictures, and we all agreed that in the pictures the children looked really happy and like they had lots of friends. We were then given four diary entries and we had to match each diary entry to the child we thought it belonged to. It was really hard because in the diary entries the children were talking about how they felt sad and upset, but none of the pictures showed this! We discussed how the pictures people choose to put on social media only shows the parts of their life they want others to see and this is not always reality.

Next, we had to write a list of all of the things that we like about ourselves and things which make us proud about ourselves. We then had to turn over and write a few things we would like to improve about ourselves. We did this privately as everyone had their own personal ideas that they didn’t want to share with others.

Finally, in small groups we had to come up with ideas of how we could boost our own self-esteem when something on social media makes us feel sad or down.

Online Safety Mascot
Our final activity was lots of fun as we had to design a new school online safety mascot! We started off by talking about what a mascot is, and what the online safety mascot will need to represent. We then worked in small groups and had to decide what we thought the most important safety messages were we would need to include and come up with a catchy name for our mascot.