At Redhill Primary Academy, online safety is a whole-school safeguarding priority. Our intent is to provide children with the knowledge, skills and understanding to enjoy childhood online, to access safe online spaces, and to benefit from all the opportunities that a connected world can bring to them, appropriate to their age and stage (Education for a Connected World, UK Council for Internet Safety). We recognise that the online world develops and changes at great speed, making it difficult to stay up to date with the latest devices, platforms, apps, trends and related threats. Therefore, we intend to provide children with the underpinning knowledge and behaviors that they need to navigate the online world safely and confidently regardless of the device, platform or app. Through our curriculum lessons and enrichment opportunities, children will learn to evaluate what they see online; recognise techniques used for persuasion; understand what acceptable and unacceptable online behavior look like; identify online risks; and understand how and when to seek support.
At the beginning of each academic year, we share our age-specific acceptable use policies with the children during their first computing lesson. These policies are our online safety rules and children are quizzed on them regularly to ensure safe usage of school technology. In EYFS, KS1 and LKS2, the acceptable use policies are sent to parents to sign and agree to. In UKS2, children sign for themselves and copies are sent home to keep parents informed.Throughout the year, during our computing lessons, children are taught about health, wellbeing and lifestyle; managing online information; copyright and ownership; and privacy and security. During our PSHCE and RSE lessons, children are taught about self-image and identity; online relationships; online reputation; and online bullying.In the EYFS, children are introduced to the concept of online safety through engaging resources such as Smartie the Penguin, Digiduck and Hector’s World. In KS1, children are taught at least ten discrete online safety lessons throughout each year. In KS2, this is increased to around eighteen lessons, reflecting the increased risks relating to online safety as children grow older. Lesson topics range from learning how to use video calling apps safely in Year 1, to learning what to do if something has put online without consent in Year 2, to learning what it means to ‘know someone’ online and how this might be different from knowing someone offline in Year 3, to learning how technology can be a negative and positive distraction in Year 4, to learning how many free apps and services may read and share personal information in Year 5, to learning about how phishing and scams are used to target people online in order to gain money or information in Year 6.As well as the curriculum teaching time that is given to online safety, children have multiple opportunities throughout the school year to deepen their knowledge and understanding of online safety. In February each year, we hold an ‘E-Safety Week’ to enhance our online safety offer. During this week, we invite external experts into school to explore issues such as cyberbullying. Later in the year, around June, we hold a ‘Healthy Lifestyles Week’ which includes assemblies and workshops from the NSPCC’s Speak out Stay safe programme. As well as regular assemblies focusing on online safety, we invite PC Claire Walker-Shale into school each September to talk to our Year 5 and 6 children about cyberbullying, online abuse and the sharing of images online.To view our subject overview for online safety, please click here.
By the end of Key Stage 2, children will…