Social Media

Cyberbullying

Social media is a fabulous tool with a great many benefits, but it has a range of drawbacks that students may not anticipate.

The most common issue is one of "cyberbullying", which is a growing problem with child suicide as a directly attributable result also on the rise.

Useful sites with good information on cyberbullying

http://www.childnet.com/resources/lets-fight-it-together

https://tradesmencosts.co.uk/keeping-children-safe-online/

It is really important to have a dialogue with your child around this subject and the below link provides some good guidance.

Develop a dialogue with your child

Parent child conversation starters

Sexting

Equally, sexting incidents are on the rise for both boys and girls and once again, suicide is on the rise.

What does ‘sexting’ mean?

Sexting is when a young person takes an indecent image of them self and sends this to their friends or boy / girlfriends via mobile phones or social media.

The problem is that once taken and sent, the sender has completely lost control of these images and these images could end up anywhere. They could be seen by future employers, Police investigation teams, or even by paedophile gangs.

By having in their possession, or distributing, indecent images of a person under 18 on to someone else – young people may not even be aware that they could be breaking the law under the Sexual Offences Act 2003.  Possession or distribution of such materials may have a major impact on their long term futures as it could lead to being placed on the Sex Offenders Register.

https://www.disrespectnobody.co.uk/

CEOP – website on sexting

Protection from Paedophiles

This is arguably the least dangerous area for our students as by and large they show a great deal of self-protective awareness. In year 7 this is a major focus of the e-safety teaching and as thoroughly examined through their computing lessons.  We use resource provided by CEOP
Simple rules to follow: *Know everyone on your friend list personally and in real life *Do not give out personal identifying information online.