New Resource – Helping Students When Things Go Wrong Online

Recently released by Netsupport, this new free guide for teachers is designed to break down barriers and tackle the stigma around reporting. Inside the guide there are:

• Lesson and activity ideas with supporting PowerPoints.
• Platform specific reporting guides and what happens next.
• Tips on training algorithms.
• Statistics on the state of socials.
• Sources of support for pupils.

Link: Free guide – helping students when things go wrong online.

Updated Resource – CEOP Band Runner

Band Runner is quite an old but good resource for children aged 8-10 and it looks like CEOP have updated it. If you haven’t seen it before it’s an interactive game featuring dilemmas around online CSA such as live streaming, online gaming and in-game chat. It’s a nice little resource for PSHE or send the link home to parents.

Link: CEOP updated Band Runner game for 8-10 year olds.

Instagram – Disappearing Images and Videos

One to be aware of – Instagram have decided that now is a good time to introduce a new Snapchat-style feature into the app – disappearing images, a.k.a. Instants. Introduced this week around the world the feature allows users to DM an image which will disappear after 24 hours of being viewed.

Although the feature is available within the Instagram app, there is also a new app called Instants and the age requirement is 13+.

Instagram states that screenshots cannot be taken of Instants, but we all know there are easy ways around this which is made easier by the fact that recipients can keep the image or photo in the chat (if the sender allows it) for up to a year. Confusingly, Instagram states on their own Help page that “You can’t view your disappearing photos or videos after you’ve sent them in a chat, but you can see if they were seen or if we detect that someone took a screenshot“. It doesn’t make sense, it’s new so we’ll have to wait and see.

Family Smart Start Pilot

South West Grid for Learning are inviting primary and secondary schools to join the pilot launch of the Family Smart Start project which was created to support families at a pivotal moment when their child received their first smartphone.

Participation includes:

• Clear, step-by-step smartphone setup guides.
• Practical advice for parents on good digital parenting.
• Tools to spark meaningful family conversations about online safety.

For further information and to get involved see the link below:
Link: Schools invited to join the Family Smart Start pilot.

NSPCC Recruiting 12-15 year olds

The NSPCC is recruiting a new group of young people aged 12-15 years to join its Voice of Online Youth which is an advisory group to help shape a safer online world. This is an incredible opportunity for young people, if you know of anyone that might be interested the link is below. Applications close 22nd May so you’ll need to be quick.

Link: NSPCC recruiting a new group of 12-15 year olds.

DfE – AI Use in Schools

On Tuesday 19th May The Department for Education released a bunch of new videos onto YouTube, all focussing on AI in education and which look to be an update from the previous videos (around 12-18 months ago). There are 4 modules comprising 18 videos, so quite a lot to get through. They only came out yesterday so I haven’t had a chance to watch and make a comment. All the videos can found on the DfE Sector Comms YouTube channel below:

Link: DfE AI Use in Schools YouTube videos.

For Parents – Is Your Child Prepared for their First Phone?

It’s a question that so many parents struggle with, balancing the positives, the negatives, the need, cost and so much more. The problem with such a question is that there is no one-size-fits-all answer.

Darren Laur has written a really useful article for parents, within the article he uses the acronym PREPARED which takes away the complexity and allows parents to make decisions based on their own circumstances.:

P – Purpose.
R – Responsibility.
E – Empathy and respect.
P – Perception of risk.
A – Adaptability and resilience.
R – Regulation.
E – Executive functioning.
D – Digital discernment.

The article is a really good read.

Link: Is your child PREPARED for their first phone?