online safety questions from students

Online Safety
Questions from Students

In late 2024 my good friend and fellow consultant Traci Gregory (nee Good), the creator of the amazing i-vengers and Special i-vengers programme for primary-aged students had an idea: to create some videos responding to online safety questions from students of primary and secondary ages.

We decided to have a trial and these first 6 videos are the result. They are free and, if there is demand, will continue to be free. But free means no budget: please don’t expect fancy TikTok-style editing. We have already noted some improvements to be made, such as the lighting, but if you have any thoughts for improvement feel free to drop me an email via the Contact page.

The videos are not scripted, we wanted them to be as natural as possible, as if we were physically in the room with students answering their questions.

Using the Videos

You can use these videos in any way you wish in school, here are a few ideas:

  • As part of an assembly.
  • To encourage classroom discussion, for example some of the answers we give, do students have any other thoughts, ideas or solutions?
  • To carry out tasks, for example in one of the Primary videos we explain how to create an easily memorable but very strong password, get the students to practice creating their own password. In a secondary video advice is given to visit the HaveIBeenPwned website to check if any of their email addresses or passwords has been compromised. Get students to check their own email addresses (but you may need to check your internet filter first).
  • To give inspiration to students to create their own videos in school as part of parental engagement, e.g. what would students like their parents to know, what have students been learning in the curriculum etc.?

Submitting Questions

If schools find these videos useful and there is demand for more, Traci and I will continue to create them, but that relies on schools submitting questions that have come from their students.

If you wish to submit your questions please do so via the Contact page noting the following:

  • Please review the questions before you submit them. Questions such as “How do I keep safe online?” are too broad. Try to steer students towards a theme, something you have done or plan to do in the curriculum.
  • If you would like your school to be mentioned as part of the question we are happy to do that, but only if you say so.

Primary Age Videos

  1. Why do you need to be a certain age for some games?
  2. I don’t like my Dad checking my phone, how can I stop him?
  3. What can you do if your account has been hacked?
  1. What is the percentage of young people at risk online?
  2. What would happen if you received an email from someone you don’t know asking you to meet?
  3. How can I stop people sending me unkind messages, or what can I do about them?
  1. Can someone see if you block, report or mute them?
  2. If someone guesses your password, can they get into more than one account using the same password – and how do you know how strong your password is?
  3. What age do you think is appropriate to have a phone/social media?

Secondary Age Videos

  1. How do you know if a website is safe?
  2. How can I tell genuine emails from scammers?
  3. How long should a good password be?
  1. How easily can your online reputation be affected through what you post on social media?
  2. If I report an account, why does it not get banned?
  3. Is 2-step verification a really good way to protect your account?
  1. I don’t have any real friends apart from online friends. How can I keep safe online and how can I tell if some of my online friends are real and not using AI to hide who they are?
  2. Why do people try and get other people’s information?
  3. Can social media platforms steal and sell on your data from one platform to another?

Online Safety Pro

Online Safety Pro is a 12-month subscription specifically for primary and secondary schools to keep staff, parents and governors up to date in a simple, time-saving and cost-effective way.

The subscription includes annual training for staff, annual training for parents, plus half-termly updates which comprises a 10-minute video for staff and a PDF newsletter for parents.

Full details