e-guarding - a guide for parents

“As online technologies and services become more embedded in people’s day-to-day activities and habits, it is increasingly hard, and increasingly less meaningful, to draw a distinction between online and offline life.” Ofcom Online Nation 2022

National Support for Parents

Both the UK Safer Internet Centre and Childnet offer a raft of resources to guide parents in online safety. Find their websites below:

UK Safer Internet Centre: Parents and Carers - UK Safer Internet Centre

Childnet: Parents & carers | Childnet

The SWGfl (South Western Grid for Learning) continues to offer a range of useful resources for parents about online safety and advice. Their parent page is here. In September they also launched a new podcast series about online social media use. You can listen here

Social Media

In response to the Online Safety Bill and high-profile cases such as Molly Russell, social media platforms have had to up their game when it comes to protecting children and young people on their platforms. Below are links to what some of the most popular social media platforms are doing to increase safety of young people and allow parents greater supervision of what their child/ ren are doing online.

TikTok: TikTok have recently introduced ‘Family pairing’, which allows parents and teens to customize their safety settings based on individual needs. Family Pairing enhances their suite of safety tools and is part of their continued work toward providing parents better ability to guide their teen’s online experience while allowing time to educate about online safety and digital citizenship. To find out more about TikTok’s safety tools read here: TikTok introduces Family Pairing | TikTok Newsroom

Instagram: Instagram have introduced Family Center, a new place for parents and guardians to access supervision tools and resources from leading experts. Supervision tools are available on Instagram today, and will begin rolling out in VR in May. Read more here: Introducing Family Center and Parental Supervision Tools on Instagram and in VR

Ofcom and recent studies into children’s media lives make clear that the online and offline experiences of children are becoming increasingly ‘blurred’ or ‘integrated’. An average teenager is likely to see no real difference between talking to friends over WhatsApp and talking to them at school. The internet touches nearly every aspect of people’s lives: working, socialising, entertainment, shopping, finding out information, accessing services and engaging as a consumer and a citizen. As a school we recognise how important it is to partner with our parent body when it comes to keeping young people safe and this is particularly crucial when it comes to their online lives. This section of the newsletter will highlight the latest advice and resources available to parents. I have written previously about our subscription to the National Online Safety platform. At the time of writing, we currently have 56 parents enrolled on the platform and we would love to see far more of you engage with this plentiful resource. To enrol use the following link: https://nationalonlinesafety.com/enrol/ wellington-college

Snapchat: Snapchat have introduced a new in-app tool called Family Centre, which will help parents get more insight into who their teens are friends with on Snapchat, and who they have been communicating with, without revealing any of the substance of those conversations. News & Press Releases | Snapchat News

Recommended parent guide - In recent months Twitter has been awash with educators worldwide debating the use of ChatGPT and Google Bard (as well as other AI solutions). Love them or hate them, these chatbots are just the start of advanced machine-learning technology and will be a part of our future, and our children’s future, for generations to come. The opportunities that these AI solutions bring can’t be underestimated, so it’s important that we, as trusted adults, understand how they work, what they can be used for and what potential risks they could spawn. NOS have created a guide to help understand exactly what AI solutions are all about which you can find at the end of this newsletter.