Anti-Bullying Week - Staying Safe Online

Last week was National Anti-bullying Week, and the themes for this year were "Stop and think: words can hurt!", covered by Key Stage 1, and "Cyber bullying" covered in Key Stage 2. In year four, we talked about Facebook and other websites which are used to share personal information over the internet. Six children in 4S used Facebook themselves, and eighteen children said that there were photo's of them posted on the website!

We created our own paper copies of an online profile that showed ALL of our personal information. We then worked through an online activity together [click here to go to the virtual Cyber Cafe we visited] that showed us why it wasn't a good idea to put much of our personal information online! Once we had finished the online activity together, we each wrote out a second 'online profile' that was much safer!

IF you are asked to fill out personal information online, please think carefully:

• Use a nickname instead of your real name.
• Remember that it is better to put your real age, and if you are a boy or a girl, than it is to lie.
• Never put your full address - instead, just say which city you live in.
• DO NOT put your phone number or e-mail address online - someone could phone you, text you, or send you nasty pictures that you do not want to see.
• If you have to put a photo up, never use one that reveals personal information about yourself.
• Always check that your privacy settings are set to PRIVATE and not to PUBLIC.