Yesterday we celebrated Safer Internet Day here at Sacriston Academy. While digital technologies open up a world of possibilities to learn, exchange and create, it can also open up certain risks.
In school, all of our children learned about the importance of staying safe online, with each year group taking part in a range of activities in their classes.
Our Key Stage 1 children focussed on keeping their identity private online and created avatars and masks to highlight its importance. Year 2, took this further by creating their own profiles on our iPads using Purple Mash, making sure to only include certain information that is safe to share.
Key Stage 2 explored internet safety in more depth and took part in a wide range of activities. Year 3 discussed the importance of a positive digital footprint and came up with some top tips on staying safe online.
Our older children looked at scenarios you may face online such as receiving a nasty message, dealing with arguments in group chats and seeing unkind photo comments. Year 5 ranked the importance of the internet to different groups of people and concluded that people who are teachers find the internet more important than groups such as farmers as jobs can rely on the internet at times.
Year 6 used scenarios in games such as 'corners' before discussing what makes a good password. The group used their mathematical skills to work out as many password combinations as they could. They also learned about how people may try to persuade others to give them personal information. The class then used their persuasive writing skills to write a series of text messages that someone may send to trick someone into giving out personal information online, highlighting the importance of never revealing too much information.
Our pupils all had great fun while learning valuable lessons about staying safe online...