Online Safety

At St Nicholas, we are committed to helping keep children safe when online in school, as well as teaching them some key online safety messages for them to use any time they are online. We also want to support families keep safe when online at home.

360 Online Safety Award

In January 2023, we were delighted to have been again awarded the 360 Online Safety Award. This is the third time which we have achieved the award, which is renewed every three years. Thank you to all of the staff, governors, parents and pupils who continue to support our Online Safety work. A special mention to our Digital Leaders for their fantastic contributions, time and efforts!

We were also delighted to receive a letter from Jeremy Wright, our local MP, congratulating us on achieving the 360 award.

Online Safety Information for Parents

Do you...

Worry about what your children are doing online?
Know how to stay safe online?
Know how to keep your children safe online?
Have online safety questions that you would like answering?
Need help to make sure that you stay safe online?

If you answered 'yes' to any of the above, please have a look at some of the information below:

ADVICE FOR PARENTS and USEFUL LINKS

Internetmatters.org - Helping parents keep their children safe online. This website contains a whole range of advice and information about Online Safety. This includes information about how to setup parental controls on many different devices, as well as advice about the latest games and apps.

Below are a few links to some of the great resources:

My Family's Digital Toolkit - Personalised online safety advice that keeps up with your child’s digital needs.

Video Games and Consoles - If your child is a keen gamer and uses a range of consoles or devices to play the latest games, make sure to set them up safe. Take a look at our list of parental control how-to guides to get up to speed on how to set the right level of protection to give them a fun and safe experience while playing video games.

Tablet and Smartphone advice - Whether your child uses Apple, Android or other devices, it’s important to consider the available parental controls and setting available.

Broadband and Mobile parental settings - Broadband, mobile and WiFi providers offer filters to limit the inappropriate content a child might see. As these typically have to be set manually, you’ll find a comprehensive list of parental control guides that we’ve created to make this process easier to follow with our step by step videos and visual instructions.

Video Game Age Ratings - When choosing appropriate video games for your child, you can use age ratings to help you.

From rating systems like PEGI and ESRB to those in app stores, this guide breaks down what it all means.

Think U Know - is the education programme from NCA-CEOP, a UK organisation which protects children both online and offline. They have provided a great advice videos and help sheets for a range of online activities. They also have a made a great help sheet to support you and your child to be safer online - you can download it here: Parent and Carers Primary Help sheet

The NSPCC website has an area called 'Net Aware' which keeps you up to date will all the latest social networks that children are using and helps them to stay safe when using them.

Childnet International is a non-profit organisation working in partnership with others around the world to help make the internet a great and safe place for children.

Social Media Advice

If you are looking for advice about any of the social media apps above, then the SWGfL have got some fantastic advice and checklists available here: https://swgfl.org.uk/resources/checklists/

BBC Own it has useful resources and activities for children about staying safe online.

Safe Searching

Most well-known search engines are designed for adults and can deliver inappropriate content even if the 'key words' entered seem quite innocent. In school, we use the search engine Swiggle with our Key Stage 2 pupils, as it is designed for children to use and so filters out inappropriate content. You can use Swiggle by clicking on the icon below:

Why not add Swiggle to your favourites?

Even better: make it your homepage!

Our St Nicks' Online Safety Rules

As a school, we worked together to create our own set of Online Safety rules which we teach :

Smart Rules

We also teach children about the SMART rules to help keep them and their friends safe when using the internet and mobile devices.

Digital Leaders

At St Nicholas, we have a team of Digital Leaders, made up of children from across Year 5 and 6. Our team works closely with the staff, to promote Online Safety messages across the school, by running assemblies, creating resources for Parents' evenings, as well as working with other schools across Kenilworth.

Online Safety Mascots

Here are the winners of our recent Online Safety mascot competition! The overall winning entry is the mascot wearing the St Nicholas School cap ...

Online Safety Advice/Questions

If you have any questions about Online Safety, or would like some more advice, please contact Mr Peak via the school office: admin3146@welearn365.com