Our Digital Leaders programme is a peer-to-peer education programme for primary and secondary schools. These Digital Leaders are championing digital citizenship and with less than one term into their e-safety programme, they already have plenty of useful tips on how to be positive and safe online. Here are just six of their top tips:
Being yourself:
You can tell people it's ok to be different you don't have to be forced into doing things you don't like. People should understand it's ok to be different so they should be themselves and be proud of it.
Understanding privacy:
Raise awareness about turning location settings off when not in use, and encourage young people to check the permissions of an app when downloading it and see if it has access to your location even if it does not relate to the app.
Seeking help:
I can advise young people to inform a teacher or trusted adult if they find something online that makes them uncomfortable or are talking to someone who is saying hurtful things.
Tackling cyberbullying:
Spread awareness of the risks of cyberbullying, give advice on what to do when confronted with cyberbullying / how to help someone you know who is experiencing cyberbullying.
Recognising reliability:
Teach the young people how to discover if a source is reliable or not and watch what information they share without knowing if it is 100% accurate.
Staying safe:
Try and give children as much knowledge about the dangers of messaging people online if have never met them and/ or don't know them that well in person.