E-Safety
The following websites are recommended to give parents advice and support for keeping their children safe online. Click on each link to find out more.
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BBC Own It |
| Lots of videos and quizzes around using technology safely and discussing issues that affect children. Aimed at Key Stage 2. | |
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Think U Know |
| Clear information about how to use the internet, set out in a very user-friendly way. Aimed at Key Stage 1. | |
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Internet Matters |
| Guidance on different issues that can affect children using the internet | |
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Lincolnshire Safeguarding Adults Board |
| LSAB website with information on internet safety for parents, professionals and children. | |
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Lincolnshire Safeguarding Children Partnership |
| LSCB website with information on internet safety for parents, professionals and children. | |
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Parent Zone |
| 'Making the internet work for families' - launched in partnership with Google, this website has got lots of information and resources to support you and your children in using the internet safely. The Digital Parenting magazine, which has current and previous issues available freely as PDFs on the site, has lots of very useful information and articles inside. | |
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PEGI ratings |
| The official PEGI guide to age ratings for games and films | |
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UK Safer Internet Centre |
| This site collects resources, links, research and guidance for all ages, including parents. | |
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Digital Literacy |
| SWGfL have created this collection of digital literacy resources for all age groups. |
Swiggle - KS2 Child-Friendly Search Engine
Swiggle is a friendly search engine aimed at children in Key Stage 2. It has been designed and developed by South-west Grid for Learning, a charity dedicated to empowering the safe and secure use of technology.
Swiggle gives children a great start in encouraging responsible online searching. The internet is a vast resource, and some content is not appropriate for children; SWGfL recommends adding Swiggle to your browser or put the Screen Cover link on your bookmark bar.
Swiggle is powered by Google Custom Search; the results are filtered using Google SafeSearch and SWGfL has configured the results to prioritise educational resources. Swiggle also filters the search terms to check that it is not being used to search for inappropriate content.
The Swiggle search page can be found by clicking here.
Age ratings
Many children use social media and games to connect with those around them. However, it is important to remember that there are age restructions in place for many of these platforms.
A quick guide for these is below, compiled using the UK Safer Internet Centre website from above.
Facebook = 13
Snapchat = 13
Twitter = 13
Instagram = 13
TikTok = 13
Skype = 13
YouTube = 13 (there is no age restriction to watch YouTube but users must be 13 or older to have their own account or channel with parental guidance - users have to be 18 to have their own channel, due to the legal restrictions around monetary payments)
WhatsApp = 16
Minecraft = 7
Fortnite = 12
There is guidance below on how to set privacy settings on Snapchat.
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LSCP - Snapchat privacy settings | [pdf 785KB] |
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National Online Safety
National Online Safety have created a bank of resources to inform parents about a range of online platforms and how to stay safe using them. These are available for free (after creating an account) from their website by clicking here.
LSCP Resources
Our colleagues at LSCP (Lincolnshire Safeguarding Children Partnership) have developed some user-friendly resources for supporting KS2 children with online safety; a guide on accessing and using these can be found below.
Their YouTube channel, which is full of useful videos on different aspects of online safety, is brilliant and can be found here.
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Online Safety Resources for KS2 | [pdf 889KB] |
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Malicious Communication
Malicious Communications has been an ongoing problem in Lincolnshire for the last few years; it is one of the top 5 crimes which 14-16 year olds in our county have received a criminal conviction for. Online behaviour is something we talk regularly to children about; we want to also make sure parents are aware of these laws and the potential consequences our online behaviour can have in the real world, for our children’s futures. The document below outlines the different laws regarding online behaviour, to accompany this video from Lincolnshire Stay Safe Partnership which is aimed at parents.
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Malicious Communication fact sheet | [pdf 330KB] |
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