The NSPCC and the PSHE Association have worked together to produce teacher resources for key stages 2-4 on personal safety and healthy relationships.
There is a teachers' guide to help create a safe learning environment for the lessons, what to do if they receive a disclosure and where to signpost young people for help. The guide also includes a template letter to parents to inform them about the content and purpose of the lessons.
The topics include:
transition to secondary school
online safety and online friendships
consent
sexualised behaviour
unhealthy relationships and
sharing sexual images
At this time of year, there are three particularly useful lessons for Year 6 pupils as they move on to secondary schools. Their friendships and relationships change, bringing about many new and sometimes difficult challenges.
The NSPCC's annual report, 'How safe are our children' compiles and analyses the most robust and up-to-date child protection data that exists across the 4 nations in the UK.
The charity has been consolidating the national data for the last five years and consistently looks at the same indicators each year, to track changes over time.
Key points include:
There have been increases in police-recorded child sexual offences across the UK, and increases in child cruelty and neglect offences in all UK nations except Scotland.
The last decade has also seen increased numbers of children on child protection plans and registers.
Almost a quarter of young people were contacted online by an adult they did not know; and since the offence of communicating indecently with a child was introduced in England and Wales in April 2017, over 3,000 crimes have been recorded by the police.
You can find the report here: https://www.nspcc.org.uk/services-and-resources/research-and-resources/how-safe-are-our-children-2018
Information courtesy of Andrew Hall, Specialist Safeguarding Consultant.
We have recently updated our website to include some e-safety resources for parents. You can find a great deal of advice and support from the internet to support you in keeping your children safe. Some sound advice from Internet Matters follows:
Agree boundaries Be clear what your child can and can’t do online – where they can use the internet, how much time they can spend online, the sites they can visit and the type of information they can share. Agree with your child when they can have a mobile phone or tablet.
Explore together The best way to find out what your child is doing online is to ask them to tell you about what they do and what sites they like to visit. If they’re happy to, ask them to show you. Talk to them about being a good friend online.
Put yourself in control Install parental controls on your home broadband and any internet-enabled devices. Set up a user account for your child on the main device they use and make sure other accounts in the household are password-protected so that younger children can’t access them by accident.
Use airplane mode Use airplane mode on your devices when your child is using them so they can’t make any unapproved purchases or interact with anyone online without your knowledge.
Stay involved Encourage them to use their tech devices in a communal area like the lounge or kitchen so you can keep an eye on how they’re using the internet and also share in their enjoyment.
Talk to siblingsIt’s also a good idea to talk to any older children about what they’re doing online and what they show to younger children. Encourage them to be responsible and help keep their younger siblings safe.
Search safely Use safe search engines such as Swiggle or Kids-search. You can save time by adding these to your ‘Favourites’. Safe search settings can also be activated on Google and other search engines, as well as YouTube.
Check if it’s suitable The age ratings that come with games, apps, films and social networks are a good guide to whether they’re suitable for your child. For example, the minimum age limit is 13 for several social networking sites, including Facebook and Instagram. Although sites aimed at under-10s like Moshi Monsters and Club Penguin also have social networking elements.
LGfL and Childnet have partnered to develop 'Trust Me', the new critical-thinking resource that encourages young people to ask themselves who, what, when and why they can trust online. This looks a really useful resource and the link to it is available here: https://www.lgfl.net/online-safety/trust-me
This is a really useful link from this weeks safeguarding briefing and makes some great suggestions for children's books on a range of subjects that are safeguarding related.
Safer Internet Day 2017 will be celebrated globally on Tuesday 7th February with the slogan ‘Be the change: Unite for a better internet’. The day offers the opportunity to highlight positive uses of technology and to explore the role we all play in helping to create a better and safer online community. It calls upon young people, parents, carers, teachers, social workers, law enforcement, companies, policymakers, and wider, to join together in helping to create a better internet. In school, we talk to our children about keeping themselves safe online as an important part of our curriculum. The day on 7th February hopes to encourage more and more of us to think about and promote the safe, responsible and positive use of digital technology for children and young people.
The BBC published an article this week, ‘How do you talk to your children about sexual abuse?’ which is a good summary of the different ways parents can have conversations about keeping safe with their children.
CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection Agency) have launched a brand new resource 'Play Like Share'. This three-episode animated series and accompanying resource pack aims to help eight-to-ten year olds learn how to stay safe from sexual abuse, exploitation and other risks they might encounter online such as sharing content.
The characters online behaviour mirrors that of many eight-to-ten year olds, gaming, chatting and sharing content is integrated into their friendships and free-time. Whilst this age group are often familiar with these types of online activities, they aren’t always able to recognise risky situations or behaviours.
Play Like Share helps children to identify the signs of pressurising and threatening behaviour in an age appropriate way. This is explored through highly relatable characters and non-frightening peer-on-peer scenarios, where children recognise tactics such as flattery or bribery or that feeling you might get when something’s not right. The resources aims to develop children’s confidence and skills to respond to these situations and get help when they need it.
The link to the resource (For teachers and parents!) is here: https://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/professionals/resources/
We are very proud to have been awarded the Good Diabetes Care in School badge by Diabetes UK. Being an award holder puts our school in a unique position to let parents and other schools know that we offer good practice care and management to children with Type 1 diabetes. One of the key objectives of the Good Diabetes Care in School Award is to create opportunities for schools around the country to learn and get support from those schools that are Good Diabetes Care in School Award holders. We are now on a list of contact reference schools which will be shared with parents and other schools who would benefit from gaining insight into the ways in which good practice schools manage children with diabetes. We believe that the more good practice information is shared amongst schools, the more schools will gain the knowledge and confidence to deliver good diabetes care.
New Thinkuknow parents and carers campaign launches!
CEOP have launched a brand new public awareness campaign. Through social media, articles, blogs, films and more, they want to get parents and carers thinking and talking about the importance of discussing sex, relationships and the internet with their children. The first part of this campaign is a new resource entitled “The world changes. Children don’t”. This short film tells the age-old story of Romeo and Juliet… with a modern twist. It shows how the lives of these young lovers might play out online today, including the Lark ‘tweeting’ and Romeo ‘friending’ Juliet.
Behind this contemporary remake is the message that, although technology and social media can seem overwhelming and forever evolving, children and young people don’t change. They try to remind parents that (just as when they were young), their children are still exploring and creating their identities, keeping up with their friends and dealing with adolescent pressures. Although much of this now happens online, they remind them that the kind of parental support and advice which keeps their children safe 'in real life' will keep them safer online too. The Thinkuknow resources can be a useful place to start in thinking about how you might frame these discussions.
Link to a new resource on the right from Hampshire & IOW Police. For more information follow the link here.
"The 'Safe4me' Education Resource Programme is a free resource available to schools, colleges and partners in Hampshire & IOW as part of Hampshire Constabulary's on-going committment to working in partnership with education and agencies to safeguard children and young people. The programme has been carefully developed in partnership with teachers, experts, with guidance from The National PSHE Association to support schools to deliver education related specifically to law, consequences and choices by providing credible resources which align with common topics explored within current PSHE, PDL, SMSC, SRE and Citizenship curriculum and other intervention models.
The overall aim of the resource is to support teachers and professionals to help young people develop a basic level of knowledge and understanding to enable them to be risk aware, make healthy informed choices and stay safe."
