Parents go ‘back to school’ for online e-safety help
Summer Sturgeon; Mrs Farah, Eljay Arenas and Talitha Mackenzie.
Parents of pupils at an Inverness primary school recently received help and advice at an online safety awareness session run by The Highland Council.
The need for training had been identified in a council wide schools’ strategy for e-safety which is enabling schools to work in partnership with pupils, staff and parents to ensure that children are best prepared for the many benefits that online learning can offer, while also being prepared for potential threats and dangers.
Robert Quigley (Head Teacher of Milton of Leys Primary) who is currently on a Digital Citizenship / Internet Safety Secondment has developed the training. He explained:
“This is a weekly informal drop-in session that Kinmylies Primary School offers for any parents and is held in the old school house next to the school. What we are offering is a new approach to engaging with parents on the topic of e-safety and is building upon what Kinmylies already do on a regular basis as part of their attempt to close the attainment gap and to make the very nature of school less threatening.
“Young Digital Leaders - a group of keen and enthusiastic pupils - are helping to drive the digital learning process forward as well as supporting with e-safety. Some of this group will be helping out on Thursday to offer a very informal and hands-on session with parents and guardians. The pupils will be sharing some of the resources available to help parents understand some of the threats that exist online.
“For example, they will be offering to help demonstrate how to find out more about some of the apps and games that children are currently playing so that at least, parents will have an understanding of what these games are all about.”
Jenny Tyronney, Principal Teacher at Kinmylies Primary, commented on the success of the event: “ Our E-Safety Team at Kinmylies Primary, comprising of pupils, staff and parents were keen to promote E-Safety across the school. They wanted to raise awareness of the dangers that exist in the online world and to offer guidance to parents as to how to support their children. We actively took part in the ‘Safer Internet Day 2018’ campaign, with all classes taking part in learning connected to internet safety. The pupils meet twice a month, along with parents and staff to talk about how we can involve as many of our pupils and parents as possible.
“The coffee morning was a great success, with our pupils working with parents to share their ideas, demonstrate how some of the apps work and to talk about their own gaming habits. We had pupils sharing the positives and negatives of ‘Fortnite’ after they had created a fact sheet for parents to take away. It is always incredible to watch how articulate, engaging and knowledgeable our pupils are!”
This event is part of the ongoing Online Safety strategy that all Highland Schools are engaged with as the 1:1 Chromebook Rollout continues.