Ahead of kids making long-awaited return to school, Matt Burton, Head Teacher of Thornhill Academy – best known as “Mr Burton” from Channel 4’s Educating Yorkshire offers parents five top tips for keeping their children safe online.
As part of our campaign to urge parents to stay switched-on, Mr Burton offers parents advice on how to adopt a collaborative approach to online safety, especially as tech will play a much bigger role in their child’s everyday life.
Have an open and honest conversation with your child about the normal risks of the online world – children may have become slightly skewed when it comes to what’s acceptable to send or say online versus face to face following this surreal and challenging period for us all.
Familiarise yourself with the school’s online learning policy. Schools have now developed these and they should have them on their websites in the event that they face another local lockdown.
Be familiar with the platforms schools use for online learning and how kids submit their work online, whether that’s homework or classwork completed during lockdown. There have been instances of some children telling their parents that they have to submit their homework via Fortnite but I can guarantee this will never be the case!
Familiarise yourself with the ‘new normal’ and what your child’s online school day looks like, e.g. if home-schooling is in place, know what time they should be logging on for an online lesson and what those lessons ‘look like’ – are they ‘live’? Are they pre-recorded? Are teachers sending examples through with a task for students to complete? Every school will be slightly different, so it’s best to know what it looks like for your child.
Work together with the school to be the best support to your child – only by working together can we keep children safe online…which is ultimately the most important thing.