Running a Brilliant Parent Session on Online Safety Doesn’t Have to be Hard

Educating parents on the latest online trends and safety concerns can be intimidating … and potentially boring. Safeguarding expert Mark Bentley shows how to approach a parent safety session and offers plenty of resources to make it interesting.

Family relaxing with kids and using digital tablet

As a safeguarding team, we’re often posed the question: ‘I’ve been asked to run a parent session on online safety—what should we do?’ These evenings are often intimidating for teachers: how do you ensure parents turn up, and once they’re sitting down, what should you teach them?

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      string(5709) "Safer Internet Day Carmel Glassbrook, Project Lead for the Professionals Online Safety Helpline at the South West Grid for LearningI started at South West Grid for Learning (SWGfL) six years ago. I had a background in childhood learning and development and an interest in childhood psychology. Equally importantly I had grown up with the internet, so I understood many of the issues from the point of view of young people. I also knew people who had been exploited online, sometimes by their peers, sometimes by predators.The variety of the job appealed as it is about listening to concerns, advising people and giving them the tools, resources and knowledge so they can make things better for the children in their care.  What isthe SWGfL?We are a leading partner of the UK Safer Internet Centre, analliance of three charities with a mission to make the Internet a better placefor children and young people.  Childnet raisesawareness and responds to policy and consultations. It works directly withchildren young people and parents. The InternetWatch Foundation focuses on removing child sexual abuse material from theweb and runs a hotline where the public can report disturbing videos and images.We provide online training, reputation management, anonymous reporting, and runsa helpline for professionals working with children.SWGfL works with schools, safeguarding leads, headteachers, police,social workers, youth workers, health workers, sports coaches and fostering andadoption staff. Really anyone who works with children.Weare not a service for parents so we signpost them to YoungMinds, ParentZone  or Childnetbut sometimes people just phone for information about  filtering products or Wi-Fi controls and wehelp them with that. We never just turn anyone away.How doyou help schools protect their online reputation? I lead the ProfessionalsOnline Safety Helpline. Schools come to us if there is material on socialmedia sites that could impact their standing in the community. Sometimesparents air grievances and it goes beyond fair comment. We might get a callfrom a school that has seen damaging attacks on Facebook and wants to get apost taken down. The majority of our work is helping the school to build a relationshipwith the parent. We don’t act as mediators but we can talk about differentapproaches they can try. In many cases, parents quickly regret their action.Often they have been letting off steam, haven’t really thought through theconsequences. They agree to settle it amicably and delete the post. Sometimesit doesn’t go so well. Perhaps there has been a breakdown of relations, wherethe parties can’t be reconciled. Then we might have to advise the school to getin touch with the local authority legal department but usually we try to getthem to talk to each other.Dochildren’s posts about school cause trouble?With increasing digital skills, we are seeing fake Instagram pages whichlook remarkably similar to the original with the school logo etc. The contentand gossipy tone are the giveaway. Students may have done this as a joke butthe trouble is that prospective parents may logon and it can affect how theysee the school and whether they want to send their child there.The site Rate My Teachers encouraged pupils to post comments aboutteachers and this has spread now to other platforms. Sometimes the comments areflippant, at other times spiteful but not illegal.Sometimeschildren sound off and complain about teachers using insults bandied around inthe playground, ‘perve’ ‘paedo’ etc. However. if there is an allegation ofabuse by a student online, there needs to be a proper investigation and we getin touch with the school. Sometimes, they might feel it is unfounded or thatthe child is being a troublemaker. My job is to educate the school about policyand the need to follow whistle blowing procedures.  Sometimesthat member of staff is put on extended leave which can cause rumours. Wealways advise the school to launch an investigation. If the school or localauthority has a paperwork trail where they have brought in outsiders, perhapssomeone from the local authority, perhaps the police and the person has beenexonerated, then we can talk to our contacts at the social media platform andget the post taken down. We have really strong partnerships with social media platforms.Ifwe believe safeguarding may be an issue, we pass the case to our safeguardinglead at SWGFL who will contact the relevant authority for more assistance.What othersupport do you provide?Harmfulcontent, sexting, hate speech. We collect data on so many different categories.In fact, if it happens on the Internet we have a category for it!Forall sorts of reasons, children in social care, foster care and children’s homesare likely to be even more vulnerable to online harm and sexual exploitation. Wetry to help social workers who might not always have a full understanding ofonline technical safety measures. We also help by running projects and trainingand creating resources. At the moment we are looking to work with foster carersonline to deliver some new mandatory safety training. How damaging is the sexual material on the internet?Wedon’t talk to children much about sex, feelings, pornography either at schoolor at home in the UK. Even from an early age childrenare very much aware of their own bodies and feelings and will turn to the internetto answer their questions about sex and relationships. What they see here isoften staged, contrived, violent and aggressive sex. The statistics are"
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      string(5695) "capabilities. Implementation in schoolsSuccessful implementation requires a whole school approach to create the culture, climate and conditions for resilience of children to flourish. Schools need to consider how to link their culture and values to a mindful approach to wellness and nurturing students and how that can be embedded within policy and practice.  An isolated instance of a teacher working with one class is less effective than a whole school approach which everyone in the school community support, including parents and all the staff. As is inevitable in an emerging subject, best practice is in its infancy.  There is considerable experimentation and debate in the UK around the appropriate formats, teaching methods and best practices for children.Schools may consider training for teachers to deliver Mindfulness lessons, however, TA’s are playing an increasing role in ‘nurturing’ children and are also likely to need skills to deliver meditations on a one – one basis.Most teacher training courses will require attendance of a substantial 8-10 week course around Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) as the basic criteria before further development of skills and CPD. 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It also boosts concentration, depth of thought, happiness and achievement. It is the most simple and natural technique to learn – indeed it is not really a technique at all.  It is all about being yourself, making the most of yourself, and making the most of the opportunities that life presents to you. It promotes trusting relationships, healthy living and psychological and emotional security.”Barriers to ImplementationThe main barriers continue to be finding resilience focused, accessible, affordable mindfulness courses and tools aimed at pupils including those with special educational needs that can be implemented without major demands on teachers’ already heavy workload and time, within a realistic timeframe.  To become “an experienced” practitioner, let alone teacher, can take several years of sustained personal commitment well beyond formal training. There is on going debate around the best way to train teachers. 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Resilience

A Mindful Approach to Resilience in Children

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      string(5687) "Pheasey Park Farm Primary School. Microsoft Surface unboxing. Day 2Back in 2014, the quality of teaching at Pheasey Park was described by Ofsted as ‘dusty’ and learning as ‘passive’ and we were in the ‘Requires Improvement’ category. We knew we needed to make immediate changes. That’s when we turned to EdTech to create a more collaborative community and give students more ownership of their learning. This has helped us to  transform behaviour and attendance levels, support school improvement and reduce teacher workload.We changed people’s way of thinking and largely this has been down to our concerted efforts to showcase the benefits of EdTech resources and our continued emphasis on professional development for staff.We were delighted when Ofsted rated the school ‘Good’ in 2016,. They said, ‘technology is used effectively to develop collaboration between pupils.’ Now we are one of the DfE’s official EdTech Demonstrator schools, helping other schools around the country leverage EdTech to their advantage and effectively support teachers and staff both during and beyond the challenges currently faced by the education sector.Minimising disruption in lockdownLike many schools, we had embraced technology long before Covid-19 hit, and had many systems already in place, so fortunately didn’t have to start from scratch unlike some schools.We had plans for subscriptions, so Covid-19 brought that forward almost overnight and we implemented systems such as Microsoft OneNote to help create a central platform for our children to log into and access all of our online content in one place.We made things as straightforward as possible for our parents and children so they would not have to check five or six different subscription sites to access work and homework. This meant there was limited disruption to lessons. We also used the same portal for giving feedback, which staff could deliver via written or audio methods. Audio feedback was particularly effective during lockdown, as children were able to hear the familiar and friendly voice of their teachers.Maintaining normalityWe really wanted to make our children feel as ‘normal as possible’ in what could be described as the most unusual and disruptive time of their lives. Obviously, maths and English and other subject teaching was important, but we also put a lot of time and energy into our learning platform. Every staff member read and recorded stories, conducted daily live discussions covering educational content as well as general conversations to replicate the social element of school.We continued running assemblies and singing practice throughout lockdown to boost morale and these were recorded so children could go back and revisit them. We also did daily handwriting sessions to provide a sense of normality, online PE lessons to support their mental and physical health and wellbeing, and online safety talks which were especially important as we were using technology a lot more. We also created a Safeguarding link for children to have direct access to our Learning Mentor.Our pupils remained highly engaged with their learning and we saw a big increase in children accessing and using online platforms. They were already familiar with many of these resources so this helped learning to continue with minimal disruption. It also allowed us to ensure teaching and learning was as fun and engaging as possible, despite not being in a classroom together. Identifying gaps in learningEdTech proved beneficial in identifying gaps in children’s learning and helped to differentiate content. We need to identify which children understand concepts and which don’t. The simplest way is often by conducting a mini assessment or game Real-time formative feedback is embedded in many of our packages, including EducationCity which helps our teachers evaluate learning. By monitoring progress, our teachers have been able to identify where any learning gaps might be, how serious they are, and what measures might be necessary to close them.Bringing learning to life with the technology It’s simple for our teachers to personalise lessons and activities because they can set specific tasks sequenced in a particular order for a particular child. For example, we had one pupil who had an individual education plan (IEP) for phonics, so using various resources we could easily tailor all his work to phonics activities.Flipped learning has also been helpful in personalising learning. We ask the children to do a task before the lesson, and then the teachers have that feedback to alert them where they should pitch the lesson, what area to focus on and what level. 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      string(219) "The continuing increase in sexting rates among adolescent boys within the United Kingdom has heightened the need to understand the discourse of sexting. Jon Needham reports on his major longitudinal study of the problem"
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      string(5643) "spread of demography anddeprivation. Participantsare drawn from Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4, years 10 – 13, with students agedbetween 14 years to 18 years old. To comply with ethical and general dataprotection regulations (GDPR) parents are informed by the schools of theresearch objectives and offered the option to opt their son into the researchprogramme. A paper based sexting behaviour questionnaire (SBQ) has beendeveloped and delivered by the researcher and before completing the survey,students are reminded of the voluntary nature of participation, anonymity anddata confidentiality, the right to be forgotten and the importance ofresponding truthfully. AdditionalCOVID19 restrictions were developed to conduct the 2020/21 research. These precautionsincluded quarantine of the SBQ for 72 hours before and after data collection, theuse of personal protective equipment, 2 metre social distancing and latterlyLateral Flow Testing before entry to the school. The number of participantswere restricted in each collection episode linked to the social bubbles createdby the education establishment resulting in multiple sessions delivered perschool visit.Interim ResultsNeedham(2020) identified in 2017 that sexting rates amongst UK boys sat at an averageof 43.9% for those boys who identified as heterosexual, with 17% of these boys activelysexting a person they did not really know. For those boys who identified as ‘samesex attracted’ this average rose to 63%, with 33% of these boys messagingstrangers. In 2020 the prevalence of sexting in UK boy’s national average has risen to 60.2%, a rise of 16.3% overall, with active sexting to strangers rising from 17% to 61%. Between boys who identify within a range of gender diversity, sexting rates were reported to reduce slightly from 63% to 58.1% but sexting with strangers has doubled in the 3 years between data sets to 66%.A comparison of sexting rates in 2017 and 2020In comparing sexting practice over the longitudinal study, what is becoming clear is that boys report receipt of their first sext message 6-9 months earlier each school year group, with the current peak at 13 years 3 months old. Only around half of those who receive messages report participation in active sexting and this engagement occurs 3-6 months later at age 13 years 9 months.Flirting or porn?Aswith the 2017 findings, ‘flirting’ was given as the predominant reason forsexting, and 100% of the boys who self-identified as being in a relationship,reported using sexting as part of their romantic association either within aheterosexual  or a same sex attractedcouple.Theperception around the general accessing of pornography differs, dependent on whetherthe boy participates in sexting or not. Where the participant in the study doesnot sext, their preconception of other boy’s porn habits is that boysfrequently access porn around 2 times a week, but they themselves report anextremely high abstinence rate of never to very occasionally. Forboys that do participate in sexting, their perception is that boys in generalregularly access porn around 4 times a week but that they, as participants, inthe main, do so only 2 times a week. What is clear from the interim data isthat the use of pornography is clearly linked to the incidence of sexting butthat further work is required in analysing access by age and an active orpassive sexting role.Ethnicity and sextingRates by ethnicity show sexting to be an issue across all ethnic groupings within the UK, with a general rise in incidence between 2017 and 2020. Where previously boys from the Asian British communities had a prevelence rate lower than other communities, the interim data from 2020 demonstrates a rise in sexting of 20% in the Pakistani boys, a 31% rise in Indian boys. In addition a 30% rise is also noted in boys with an Arab heritage. This calls for further investigation into the impact of heritage and faith into sexting and the development of a British teenage identity rather than one shaped by ethnicity alone. Rates increasing across all ethnicitiesNext stepsIf a 15% rise in sexting in UK boys over the last 3 years is proven to be true, then the efficacy of current curriculum resources needs to be questioned. Moreover, a prevalence rate of 60% must begin to indicate that sexting is becoming a normalised behaviour. Whilst there is a clear legal position around the age at which sexual images cease to be illegal, there is a potential disconnect between the legal system and adolescent sexuality; where a teenage couple aged 16 and over, exercising their legal right to be sexually active, cannot record, photograph, or otherwise document their union, without breaking the law. When asked, many teenagers do not appreciate the interstice between the age of consent, the age of majority and the creation and curation of sexual images.Patchinand Hinduja (2020) argue that in general, a sexting curriculum based onavoidance of risky sexual behaviours, fear-based content and abstinence hasproved to be ineffectual and argue that now is the time for a safe sextingprogramme.  They suggest a curriculumsimilar to ‘safe sex’ health education programmes, where safer sexting practicearound consent to send, refusal to share, awareness of recipient, andappropriate content is taught alongside the concepts of e-safety and digitalprivacy. Albury(2017) argues for a fundamental shift in curriculum resources away from shamingthe victim where a breach in privacy has occurred, to shaming those that sharethe image or coerce images for malicious use. She writes:‘Whatif"
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Digital Learning

Do you think I’m Sexty? Profile and Prevalence of Sexting in UK Boys

23 Jan 2021