It was Safer Internet Day on Tuesday, 11th of February and, to mark the occasion, Laxton Junior School had a week of focus on online safety. Safer Internet Day is an annual event that is designed to empower young people to take control of their digital lives. This year, the focus was on online identity and asking young people to consider whether they and their peers are truly free to be themselves online.

During the Infant and Junior assemblies, the children focused on the information you should and should not share about yourself online. We also discussed the importance of making sure the internet feels safe for everyone.

In their Computing lessons, the infants went into more detail about this and we read a wonderful story about online identity called ‘Digiduck’s Famous Friend’. If you would like to read the story again, the link is here. In Years 3 to 6, the focus in Computing lessons was the new LJS Pupil Online Safety Agreement. The children were shown a list of online safety rules that had been created by our Digital Leaders. We then discussed them as a class and decided if they were fair and reasonable. Now that we have agreed on them as a school, they will go home to be signed by pupils after half-term.

We also had an Online Safety ‘Parents in Partnership’ session led by Kathryn Brown from the NSPCC. This was a fantastic session and was very informative, focusing on many areas in which we can support our children at home as they navigate the digital world. The website, https://www.net-aware.org.uk/, was shared and has proved very helpful in offering advice to parents when supporting children of all ages to interact with the online world safely and positively.

Overall, the week was a great success and while we will continue to focus on online safety throughout the year, we look forward to celebrating Safer Internet Day next year.

Mr Fraser Harper, Online Safety Lead