“Children have the right 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. As they grow older, it is crucial that they learn to balance the benefits offered by technology with a critical awareness of their own and other’s online behaviour and develop effective strategies for staying safe and making a positive contribution online.”
‘Education for a Connected World’ framework, 2020
ONLINE SAFETY CURRICULUM STATEMENT
At Alfriston School:
- We believe that online safety is an essential part of safeguarding and acknowledges its duty to ensure that all learners and staff are protected from potential harm online.
- We identify that the internet and associated devices, such as computers, tablets, mobile phones and games consoles, are an important part of everyday life.
- We believe that learners should be empowered to build resilience and to develop strategies to manage and respond to risk online.
OUR CURRICULUM INTENT FOR ONLINE SAFETY
With these aspirations, our intentions for the Online Safety curriculum are:
- To enable to support children and young people to live knowledgeably, responsibly and safely in a digital world.
- To focus specifically on eight different aspects of online education:
- 1. Self-image and Identity
- 2. Online relationships
- 3. Online reputation
- 4. Online bullying
- 5. Managing online information
- 6. Health, wellbeing and lifestyle
- 7. Privacy and security
- 8. Copyright and ownership
- To develop safe and long-term behaviours of online use so that it is empowering, builds resilience and effects positive culture change.
HOW WE IMPLEMENT OUR INTENTIONS
Online Safety is taught and enforced across the school in a variety of ways. Every child will learn the importance of staying safe online and how to make safe choices while online through teaching that is incorporated into the Computing curriculum and the PSHEe curriculum, including Relationships and Sex Education. We use the ‘Education for a Connected World’ framework to incorporate Online Safety teaching into our computing curriculum with links made in our NCCE Teach Computing curriculum planning.
As well as regular lessons and the use of assemblies and workshops, we mark Safer Internet Day each year and use this as a valuable opportunity to reinforce the importance of Online Safety. We also ask every member of the school community, including staff parents and pupils, to sign Acceptable Usage Agreements.
