Online Safety

The internet has changed all of our lives, particularly our children’s. At Hexthorpe Primary, we strongly encourage sensible use of digital and online technologies. They open up huge possibilities for learning for all of our children; children can use the internet to research new information, as well as connecting to children they know online or via mobile phone. For parents and carers, this opens up a whole new world of things to be aware of, in particular the need to ensure your child’s safe and responsible use of technology. On the links below, you will find lots of useful information about e-safety. If you have any queries, please contact the school and speak to a member of the Safeguarding team.

Children’s Online Safety Learning

Every year, the online safety co-ordinator and class teachers work together with the children to teach them about being safe online. We also aim to provide online safety seminars and workshops led by external online safety experts.

How We Can Help Our Children

As a parent or carer, you have a challenging job: you need to know what your children are doing online and also to help them to do it in a safe way. With technology changing on a daily basis, the best way to stay informed is to get involved. For starters you might want to watch some videos on the ‘thinkuknow’ website together and talking about them afterwards, or maybe ask your child to teach you how to do something online. You can use these discussions as a basis for reaching family agreements about how the internet and mobile phones should be used at home.

The most important thing to do is to talk to your child about their online behaviour; what sites they visit, how they behave and what they need to do if something happens online or via mobile phone that makes them feel unhappy, uncomfortable or afraid. The Centre for Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) recommend that access to the internet should be via a computer or device kept in a family room, not in the child’s bedroom or away from where an adult would be able to see what they are doing and who they are communicating with. (You will also find the CEOP link on all our webpages at the footer section.)

If you are speaking with your child about online safety and they say something that concerns you, don’t panic – try to keep an open mind. Your key role is listening, calming and providing reassurance that the situation can get better when action is taken. Provide a quiet, calm place where they can talk about what is happening. Listen and reassure them that coming to you was the right thing to do. It may not be easy for a child to talk about their concerns so it is important to try to find out how they are feeling, what has happened, when and where. However, at this stage it is not so much about establishing a set of facts as listening, encouraging and talking – it could be that through your discussion your concerns will be allayed as you understand more their experiences and feelings.

More information can be found in our Online Safety policy here

The following websites have some excellent resources and information regarding online safety.