Online Safety

Staying Safe with AI Online

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming a normal part of children’s online lives — from chatbots and homework tools to creative apps that generate pictures, stories, or music. While AI can support learning and spark creativity, it also brings risks such as misinformation, fake images or videos, and confusion about who or what children are interacting with.

At West Ewell Primary School, we want to help families feel confident and informed. The NSPCC offers an excellent guide to talking to children about AI, understanding the opportunities it provides, and recognising the potential risks. You can read their full advice here:

NSPCC - Talking to Children About AI

We encourage parents and carers to explore the apps their children use, talk openly about how AI works, and remind children to speak to a trusted adult if something online feels confusing, uncomfortable, or unsafe.

We live in an increasingly online world and whilst it offers amazing opportunities for communication and learning, it can also be a potentially dangerous environment to negotiate. We teach the children about ways of staying safe online from their earliest days in school and we have an Online Safety curriculum that teaches pupils how to stay safe, how to protect themselves from harm and how to take responsibility for their own and others’ safety.

We teach pupils what internet use is acceptable and what is not in accordance with our Online Safety rules and these must be complied with in order for them to gain access to the school ICT systems and the internet.

Online Safety rules are posted in all networked rooms and pupils will be regularly reminded of them and will be taught how to report unsuitable internet content.

We send out a monthly Online Safety newsletter for parents which covers the sorts of programs and internet activity their children will be likely to engage with and we have parent links to National Online Safety, an excellent resource which aims to guide parents through the online world.

The sudden arrival of remote learning during the COVID 19 pandemic has moved more and more pupils online. We use Microsoft Teams as our preferred vehicle for providing learning opportunities to our pupils and have strict guidelines for its safe use.

Please see our Online Safety policy for full details.

Online Safety Policy

Online safety Guidance for Parents and Carers

This is a link to a useful PowerPoint on Online Safety from the ITU. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is the United Nations specialised agency for information and communication technologies (ITUs)

Parents and educators | ITU-COP Guidelines (itu-cop-guidelines.com)

A Guide to Parental Controls

Click the links below for Besafe online information

Besafe online - Apps Good / Bad

Besafe online - Best Practice

Put yourself in control

Make use of the parental controls on your home broadband and any internet-enabled devices. You can find out how at your broadband provider’s website or by visiting internetmatters.org.

Search safely

Use safe search engines such as primaryschoolict.com or kids-search.com. Safe search settings can also be activated on Google and other search engines as well as YouTube.

Agree boundaries

Be clear what your child can and can’t do online – where they can use the internet, how much time they can spend online, the sites they can visit and the type of information they can share.

Explore together

The best way to find out what your child is doing online is to ask them to tell you about it. Put the family computer in a communal area so you can see what sites they’re visiting and share with them. Help your child to understand that some people lie online and not all information is accurate.

Check if it’s suitable

The age ratings that come with games, apps, films and social networks are a good guide to whether they’re suitable for your child. The minimum age limit is 13 years for several social networking sites, including Facebook and Instagram. The age restriction is there to protect children’s personal information under the 1998 The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.

Learn about it

Use the ESMART rules we use at school:

• keep Every personal detail private and using a nickname where necessary
• keep passwords a Secret
• keep Messages polite and be a good online friend
• Ask before using the internet, playing a new game or downloading files
• be Responsible and only talk to people you know in real life on the internet (some games such as Club Penguin and Moshi Monsters have a social element)
• Tell an adult if you see something that upsets you or you feel unsafe

Useful websites: 

https://www.ceop.police.uk/Safety-Centre/Thinkuknow - homeGet Net Wise   Online Safety - London Grid for Learning (lgfl.net)

Wake Up Wednesday!

As part of our WEPS online safety offer, every Wednesday, we will post a relevant guide to support our school community's knowledge and understanding of how to keep safe online and new things to be aware of.

Wake Up Wednesday

Our SMART Online & AI Rules

Get to Know Age Ratings

Useful Parental Guides