Welcome to this weekly online safety update, I hope you are well and having a good week.
Updates
- Free Prevent course.
- For Secondary – BBC Bitesize guide to AI.
- Children’s Commissioner – Youth Advisory Board.
- School phone bans.
- Discord (age verification service) hacked.
- For parents – Roblox Age Estimation.
Free Prevent Course
Cardiff City Council in partnership with Wise Kids have put together a completely free ‘Preventing Online Radicalisation’ course. There’s no login, no sign-up, and although it is aimed at parents/carers and Early Help Practitioners I think it could be useful for anyone. There are 12 different sections and shouldn’t take any more than an hour to complete.
You can find all details HERE.
For Secondary – BBC Bitesize Guide to AI
Described as a fun and engaging collection of films for teenagers, my good friend Mark Anderson, known as ‘The ICT Evangelist’ was involved with the BBC to create some amazing, free resources for students. In his words:
The BBC Bitesize Guide to AI is here, and I’m so proud to share that I was involved with the brilliant team behind the series as the lead education and AI consultant.
The team wanted to do something special; to help young people not only understand what AI is, but also think critically about how it affects their lives and futures. The result is a thoughtful, creative, and responsible series of short films that make AI approachable without losing its complexity.
Across the seven episodes, each follows a clear and consistent structure. Every story starts with a relatable question, explores the concept through engaging examples, and finishes with practical, ethical advice learners can act on.
Here’s the full series:
- How to use AI tools to create art
- How do I trust my social feed?
- How to use AI for revision
- Is AI bad for the environment?
- How could AI support my wellbeing?
- How to use AI to generate pictures
- How to use AI to style an outfit
Everything is free and the link is HERE.
Children’s Commissioner – Youth Advisory Board
The Children’s Commissioner is setting up a new advisory board made up of young people aged 13 to 18. Sharing their experiences of the online world to help Ofcom make their decisions this is a fantastic opportunity for any young person wanting to make a difference.
Fifteen young people will be selected to be a member of the board, for more information see HERE.
School Phone Bans
Whilst here in the UK the debate about banning phones in schools still rages on, in Australia they have been banned for two years. What have the outcomes been?
A survey of almost 1,000 public school principals has shown that:
- 80% said the ban has improved students learning
- 86% said it has improved socialisation
- 87% believe students are less distracted.
These are really interesting, I don’t mind admitting I’ve always been glass-half-empty when thinking about this but I can’t argue with these stats. There’s a full write-up in The Guardian which you may find interesting HERE.
Discord (Age Verification Service) Hacked
The social app Discord is hugely popular, especially with gamers. Last week, the company that provides the age verification service to Discord was hacked with reports stating that around 70,000 user details have been compromised. Although the hack is quite limited this is an opportunity to re-iterate the importance of passwords to students, but to also mention that regardless of how strong your password is, it can still be compromised. Students should be reminded to frequently check services such as HaveIBeenPwned. If they think their details have been compromised, all they need to do is change their password (or delete/suspend their account if they no longer use it).
You can see the full article about the breach in The Guardian HERE.
For Parents – Roblox Age Estimation
As the most popular game in the world Roblox has come under a lot of criticism recently, particularly in regards to predatory activity on the platform. Whilst Roblox has always had fairly good parental controls in place, ages of users has always been a concern, particularly adults pretending to be younger children.
Recently Roblox have announced that they are expanding facial age estimation and ID age verification to all users who access the communication features within Roblox, as well as new systems designed to limit communication between adults and children unless they know each other in the real world.
The word ‘limit’ has me a little concerned as there is no information on what that actually means, but regardless it’s definitely a step in the right direction which I think may parents will welcome. Apparently there have been over 100 safety initiatives since January 2025 on Roblox, I wasn’t aware of that, but there is lots of information for parents HERE.
Weekly Update to your Inbox
Online Safety Pro
Staff, parent and governor online safety training.
- Annual staff, parent and governor training (pre-recorded videos).
- Half-termly staff and parents updates (video for staff, PDF newsletter for parents.
- 12 month subscription – 1 single low cost per school (not per person).
- All written and produced by Alan Mackenzie, an online safety specialist for over 17 years.
- Discounts for multi-school or MAT purchases.