Safer Internet Day is globally celebrated and coordinated in the UK by the UK Safer Internet Centre. This year the theme is “lets create a better internet together!”.
The UK Safer Internet Centre aim to provide up-to-date resources for parents, children and carers which meet emerging online trends.
With the internet being a fast-changing and ever-growing environment, The Safer Internet Centre (SIN) keep on top of the latest trends so that they can provide the best guidelines at the earliest opportunities to keep children and young people safe when using the internet.
SIN operates the UK’s hotline for reporting online criminal content.
Safer Internet Day 2015 will be held on Tuesday 10th February with the theme “lets create a better internet together”. Safer Internet Day is a growing success year on year, last year 197,000 safer internet packs were downloaded. In the last 12 months the centre has reached out to 5,972 parents and 569 schools.
In partnership with Anti-Bullying Ambassadors, SIN are broadcasting Safer Internet Day TV! On February 10th there will be two online showings of the show which is presented by CBBC’s Molly and Harvey from the Friday Download Show. They’re both 20 minutes long and provide plenty of topics of conversation so they’re great for watching during class time!
Activity ideas
Here are a few simple and easy to follow tasks you could set your pupils and children. Let us know if you have any other suggestions to help get internet safety messages across to children and young adults.
Who would you tell?
Get your children or pupils to write down a list of different types of personal information for example:
- First name
- Surname
- Address
- Postcode
- Age
- School name
- Family members names
Host a quick discussion about these, ask whether they think these details could be used to contact or identify them.
Then ask who they would be happy to discuss this different information with, for example:
- Teachers
- Doctors
- Taxi driver’s
- A friends grandparents
Then talk about who you can trust/who can trust you and how giving other people’s personal information away isn’t always okay.
See what your pupils and children come up with on this topic, it’s a good way to see how aware they are of data security both on and off line.
True or False?
See if your pupils can differentiate between someone telling the truth and someone not being so honest.
Get your class to ask you simple questions like how old you are or what your dog’s name is. Make sure you answer with a mix of lies and truths and see if your pupils can catch you out.
Talk about how it is important to tell the truth whilst making sure to not give out lots of personal information.
There is a vast amount of advice and resources on the SIN website, here is just one video, sharing a little insight into Safer Internet Day 2015:
Check out #SID2015 and @UK_SIC on Twitter for updates and behind the scene news and let us know how your Safer Internet Day 2015 goes!