There are a huge range of risks online for students, staff and schools when using the Internet. Fortunately there is a wide range of (generally) free online resources available to help us understand the risks, implement policies to mitigate them, and teach people to make sensible decisions online.

We’ve highlighted 6 resources that everyone working within education and with children online should be aware of, in order to prepare for using the internet and understanding what to do when coming across any potentially harmful content.
Childnet are a non-profit organisation who work to ensure the internet is a safe and enjoyable place for children. They produce a great range of free resources to help staff and students learn more about risks and how to understand and manage these in school www.childnet.com.
KidSMART is part of Childnet and provides useful resources such as lesson plans, leaflets, posters, activity days and interactive games for teaching eSafety as well as information for parents www.kidsmart.org.uk.
SWGFL are a another not for profit charity trust and a recognised leader in e-safety, not just in the South West. Policy templates, checklists and a wide range of learning resources for both staff and students are available for free www.swgfl.org.uk.
ICT4Collaboration are specialists in providing technology services to educational organisations and are part of the Yorkshire and Humberside Grid for Learning. They provide local ICT training events all across Yorkshire as well as useful online resources www.ict4c.co.uk.
IWF is the Internet Watch Foundation. They are the UK Hotline for reporting criminal content online, including child sexual abuse content and criminally obscene adult content. If you have content of this nature reported to you it is important that you do not investigate or try to access it. Just go to the IWF website at www.iwf.org.uk and report it. The process is anonymous and confidential.
CEOP, The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, part of the UK Government’s National Crime Agency, is an organisation consisting of police officers who work to prosecute online child sex offenders, including those who produce, distribute and view online child abuse material. CEOP operate a similar online reporting tool for incidents such as grooming or people acting inappropriately towards children online. This can be found at www.ceop.police.uk.
Related Content
Webanywhere eSafety – Visit our dedicated eSafety pages to find out more about the issue and how to prevent any online issues.

Anti-Bullying Week 2014 has marked the 15th birthday of the ongoing campaign to make bullying unacceptable.
During that week, schools nationwide were encouraged to take part in this event by organising exciting ways for children to participate in group activities and raise money for awareness. The event has raised a lot of awareness and the work carried out should continue well beyond November.
Bullying can be described as repetitive behaviour from one party to another, with the intention of causing harm, either emotionally or physically. Bullies often target certain people due to ignorance towards race, religion, gender or sexual orientation or any other aspect such as appearance or disability.
Bullying during younger stages of a persons life is likely to come in the form of either; physical abuse, verbal abuse or cyber bullying.

National Survey Raises Concerns

During a national survey conducted by BullyingUK this year, it was found that many forms of abuse are still a major issue, concerning children, parents and even teachers.
The following alarming statistics were found.

• 93% of pupils reported that bullying occurred at school primarily during break, in classrooms and the playground.
• 81.4% of young people were bullied by more than one person. 62% of the children confided in their parents.
• 95% of parent respondents told BullyingUK that bullying took place in school, with 83.2% identified as name calling, 66% as physical bullying and 68.1% social bullying.

These statistics become even more concerning with these further results from the survey.

• Nearly 92% of school staff feel lunchtime and bank staff should receive training on tackling bullying.
• 74.5% of young people felt their school’s response was unhelpful.
• 61% of parents stated their child was bullied over 8 times or more.
• Once reported 62% of pupils said the bullying didn’t cease.
• 76.3% feel more teacher presence can help minimise bullying.
• 61.4% of staff feel it is difficult to keep on top of bullying within schools.
• 58% of children have taken time off school because of bullying, with a 1/4 missing more than a day off school and 10% penalised for taking the time off.
• 41% of children said bullying going on for 2 years or more.
• 40% of teachers have been assaulted by pupils.

Whilst victims of abuse are encouraged to share their problem with trusted adults, especially teachers, BullyingUK have found this may not be the most effective solution.

• 85% of parents said once the school was involved the bullying still continued.
• 35% of parents felt the school did not take the bullying seriously.
• Only 55% of children were able to confide in their parents straightaway.

Anti-Bullying Resources for Your School

However, with the continued support from many different organisations, counter action can be taken to combat bullying. The following list has been devised to help you raise awareness in your school as another step towards eradicating bullying forever.

• School resources for Key Stage 1 and 2, including Assembly PowerPoint from Beyond Bullying.

Download Beyond Bullying’s presentations here, which contain fact and figures and advice for tackling bullying, along with fundraising ideas.

• A free ebook download.

Get ‘Finding Your Inner Cherokee’ by Siobhan Curham for free by clicking here . The book is full of case studies, exercises and advice to help inspire and empower victims of bullying.

• Bullying and Cyberbullying, at a glance, NSPCC.

Information on bullying, with a focus on Cyber Bullying. Video showing action to be taken by victims to regain confidence.

• Am I a bully? Interactive guide.

BBC, CBBC and Newsround have put together an interactive guide to help everybody understand what bullying is.

• Cyberbullying: A Need To Know Guide from Webanywhere.

Cyberbullying is a growing problem, and one all schools need to know how to deal with. Webanywhere, with help from e-Safety Adviser’s Alan Mackenzie, have put together a free guide to tackling Cyberbullying in school, full of practical tips on implementing anti-bullying policies. You can download the guide here.

• TES Connect, Anti-Bullying Teaching Resources.

Extensive list of resources, here, for teachers to use in schools, Addressing simple friendship issues, through to detecting online abuse.

Understanding bullying.

The links below bring interesting information on why children may become bullies and the consequences of bullying.
https://learn2bebuddies.wordpress.com/2010/02/21/children-with-behaviour-disroders/
https://www.xraydata.com/consequences-of-bullying-the-short-long-term/

Last month, Webanywhere invited schools and teachers to take part on a e-safety questionnaire (you can see our original blog post here) – and last week, we compiled the results. If you took part- thank you! You’ve helped us build a picture of the state of e-safety in UK primary schools – and here are the results.
The survey revealed that, astonishingly, 63% of teachers don’t feel they have any influence over whether a child uses social networking sites, such as Facebook. Facebook, incidentally, has a minimum user age of 13.
And almost a third – 30% – feel they haven’t had adequate training on how to deal with cyberbullying.
The survey also revealed that 55% were aware that between one and five pupils had been a victim of cyberbullying at their school in the past 12 months.
The purpose of this questionnaire was originally to get a better insight into how schools feel about -and are affected by – e-safety issues. However, since seeing these results we decided to speak one of our customers about the issue – as well as an independent e-safety expert.
Jo Corrigan, Headteacher at Eastlands Primary School in Rugby – who hold an SWGfL 360 safe accreditation and has two members of staff registered as CEOP Ambassadors – took part in the survey and said: “The teaching and learning of internet safety is extremely important from an early age. Key to educating the children is ensuring staff are appropriately trained.
“At Eastlands Primary School we try to develop innovative ways of engaging parents and children with the safe use of the internet – for example, ‘speed-e-learning’ workshops.”
John Carr OBE, Secretary of the UK’s Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety, said: “Teachers can’t teach if they don’t feel confident in relation to the subject they are meant to be teaching about. This survey shows that too many teachers do not feel they have been given proper support to enable them to do their job. That has to be fixed, as a matter of priority.
The full results of the survey, in colourful pier charts, can be seen below. If you’d like to find out more about e-safety, or if you would like to learn more about our free e-safety events, please email info@webanywhere.co.uk.
 

This week is Anti-Bullying Week, an annual UK-wide campaign to highlight the issue in schools.

Here are 7 great resources to help you discuss the problem of bullying with your pupils.

 

Multimedia resources from Bullying UK

This interactive video allows you to choose your own path through a common bullying situation in school. The viewer decides between from various options, and sees those choices play out.

Bullying UK have also made an embeddable button you can add to your website or VLE that allows your pupils to talk in confidence about bullying to the Family Support team online.

 

 A School Assembly PowerPoint from The Guardian Teacher Network

Download this free presentation, containing tips on creating school assemblies on the issue of cyberbullying, looking at the themes, key aims and definitions.

 

A free ebook download

Get ‘Finding Your Inner Cherokee’ by Siobhan Curham for free by clicking here . The book is full of case studies, exercises and advice to help inspire and empower victims of bullying.

 
Lesson plans, roadshows and resources from The Anti-Bullying Alliance

The Anti-Bullying Alliance established Anti-Bullying Week, and host a wide range of resources and lesson plans on their website, along with details on events aimed at tackling bullying, held throughout the year.

 

Cyberbullying: A Need To Know Guide from Webanywhere

Online technology has changed the nature of bullying – with social networks, bullying is no longer limited to the schoolyard, and is something children often have to deal with at home. Cyberbullying is a growing problem, and one all schools need to know how to deal with. Webanywhere, with help from e-Safety Adviser’s Alan Mackenzie, have put together a free guide to tackling Cyberbullying in school, full of practical tips on implementing anti-bullying policies. If you would like a copy of the guide, please contact us.

Last night saw Webanywhere launch Learner Journey here in Keighley. Learner Journey is the new pupil e-portfolio system that allows learners to showcase their proudest achievements – and with the option to communicate with peers in a safe, secure environment, it promotes e-safety in schools.
e-Safety is now a big part of Ofsted’s inspections, so we invited along safeguarding expert Jeff Haslam. Jeff sits on the Education Board of CEOP and is a consultant for the UK Safer Internet Centre – making him the perfect choice for guest speaker.
Jeff took us through Ofsted guidelines and the legal responsibilities for safeguarding in schools, discussing how they can protect both staff and children from the risks the internet presents. A walk-through of Learner Journey followed, with its many functions demonstrated: from sending messages and posting on peers’ walls, to uploading work and collaborating on joint projects. Learner Journey works in a similar way to social networking sites like Facebook – but users’ profiles are not visible or accessible to anyone outside of their school.
Guests were then able to try it for themselves – and enjoy some of the delicious buffet provided! Webanywhere looks forward to working with these teachers further – and help promote safe social networking in schools, with Learner Journey.
If you’d like to keep up to date with Webanywhere events like this, follow us on Twitter (@webanywhere_ltd). If you would like to book a free Learner Journey Demonstration, contact us by clicking here.