E-Safety is an important part of keeping children safe and Birkdale High School has extensive security measures in place to help safeguard students from potential dangers or unsuitable material. E-Safety is taught to all students; explaining and demonstrating how to stay safe and behave appropriately online. This is done extensively in Year 7 Term 1 and reinforced throughout the years through PSHCE, Careers days, Assemblies and through other curriculum areas. However, we can only be successful in keeping children safe online if we work with parents to ensure the E-Safety message is consistent.

It is important that parents speak to their children about how they can keep safe and behave appropriately online. It is essential to be realistic, the internet and technological advancements are here to stay; banning them will not work – often it makes a child less likely to report a problem. Education around safe use is therefore essential.

Some tips for you to help keep yourself safe online

• Consider locating your computer or mobile devices in a family area where your online activity can be monitored or supervised.
• Talk to your parents and show or even teach them how you use the internet and learn about websites.
• It’s really important that you tell an adult you trust (parent, form tutor, Head of Year) if anything happens online that makes you feel scared, worried or uncomfortable.
• You should use the same caution online as you would in the real world. You should never go to meet someone you have only spoken to online or give out personal information online.
• Make sure that your parents have installed antivirus software and it is kept up to date, secure your internet connection and use Parental Control functions for computers, mobile phones and games consoles to block unsuitable content or contact.
• Familiarise yourself with the age limits of social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram etc. There’s an age limit in place for a reason. If you are allowed on to these sites, make sure you know how they you protect yourself while using these sites – for example knowing how to set appropriate privacy settings.
• If you are in immediate danger call 999.

Social Networking

The popularity of social networking and the ease at which both friends and strangers can get in touch with people can be of concern. The Government have published a useful guide which can be found below.

Gaming
When you are accessing games via Xbox LIVE, PSN etc, privacy settings can be set up. Please consult the user manual for your games console on how to set up parental controls.

Cyber Bullying
Cyber bullying is the act of using internet and digital (including mobile) technologies to upset or humiliate another person.

Sexting
When people talk about sexting, they usually refer to sending and receiving:

• Naked pictures or ‘nudes’
• ‘Underwear shots’
• Sexual or ‘dirty pics’
• Rude text messages or videos

They can be sent from a friend, boyfriend, girlfriend or someone you’ve met online. You might have also sent a sexual photo, video or text to someone else.

We understand how easily sexting can happen and how things can go wrong – even when you didn’t mean for them to.

Please read the following article which includes:

• Steps to take if your child has shared an inappropriate or explicit image or film of themselves
• Steps to take if your child has received or passed on inappropriate or explicit image or film of themselves.

Nude Selfies
This is a series of four short animated films for parents and carers offering advice on how to help keep their children safe from the risks associated with sharing nude and nearly nude images.

The films aim to help parents and carers:

• Understand young people’s motivations for sending nude selfies.
• Plan to respond positively and constructively to an incident in which their child has shared a nude selfie.
• Gain confidence and skills in initiating preventative conversations.
• Identify risky behaviours or situations and know where to seek help.
• Know how to get help if a child is at risk after sharing an image.

We would encourage parents/carers to watch these short films and share with their friends by emailing, texting, tweeting links etc.

They are based on research findings from the European Commission-funded SPIRTO (Self-Produced Images: Risk Taking Online) Project and include:

The films are based on a two-year qualitative investigation led by the University of Edinburgh in partnership with the University of Linköping (Sweden), Innocence in Danger (Germany) and the CEOP Command of the National Crime Agency.