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Safer Internet Day 2017 set to be biggest yet

Safer Internet Day is the UK’s biggest campaign to inspire children and young people to ‘Be the change’ and use technology positively and responsibly.

Activities from films and a photography project, to lesson plans and presentations, schools are encouraged to deliver engaging activities for Safer Internet Day and empower their students, staff and parents and carers to use technology safely, positively and responsibly.

Safer Internet Day 2017
On 7th February 2017, Safer Internet Day will be celebrated globally with the slogan ‘Be the change: Unite for a better internet’ with millions of people around the world uniting for a better internet.

Coordinated in the UK by the UK Safer Internet Centre the celebration sees hundreds of schools and organisations get involved to help promote the safe, responsible and positive use of digital technology for children and young people.

The Safer Internet Day 2016 campaign reached 40% of all UK children, with schools across the country running whole school activities, lessons, holding parent sessions or getting involved in the social media campaign.

How can schools get involved?
Schools across the UK can get involved in a number of ways:

• Engage students by running assemblies or class activities – or join the SID2017 photography campaign to empower your students to create engaging images that communicate a message.
  
• Reach out to parents and carers by running a session or sharing information.
  
• Showcase what you are doing to support the day by joining the supporters list and sharing on social media.
  
• Join the social media campaign – find out how to get involved in the biggest global campaign about the safe use of technology and use the #giveasmile templates to encourage your pupils to create their own emoji or share positive messages.

The impact of Safer Internet Day involvement
Engaging in Safer Internet Day can have a hugely positive impact. Last year, out of those children and young people who had heard about or engaged with Safer Internet Day, 87% said that as a result they felt more confident about what to do if they were concerned about something online. This year already 300 schools have joined the official supporters list for Safer Internet Day 2017 and it looks set to be the biggest Safer Internet Day yet.

As Will Gardner, Director of UK Safer Internet Centre, said:

“Safer Internet Day is a moment in the year where children and young people, parents and carers and schools can all come together and talk openly and honestly about the positives of the internet as well as the potential risks.

“With an ever-changing landscape, it is more important than ever to equip young people with the critical thinking skills they need to navigate the online world.”

E-safety Support - SID2017 Competition
Don't forget to take part in the E-safety Support annual SID competition. To get involved, all your pupils have to do is come up with a positive e-safety acronym using the words CHANGE or UNITE - inspired by the SID2017 theme, Be the Change: Unite for a better Internet.

This competition is open until midnight on February 6th 2017. Find out more

The Blue Moment film is a story of resilience and solidarity uncovering the mystery of a young woman from Africa who has arrived in Britain after being persecuted in her own country.

With more displaced people in the world than ever before, refugees are coming to Europe, and a small percentage of those are arriving now in the UK. KS3-4 young people in schools may well be aware of the young refugees, mainly from Syria, being given asylum here.

Blue Moment is a 45 minute, educational, online film drama made by safeguarding-drama specialists Risky Things for 15+ viewing. Devised with the Refugee Therapy Centre in London, it is based on real case studies of young refugees, who have endured torture, being helped to recovery here. Work started on the project 3 years ago, because of the challenges that refugees and their support organisations were facing: reducing funds for social services and adverse public opinion fed by often ill-informed, anti-immigration media reporting. Telling true stories has only become more important since then, and the issue more high profile.

This film of resilience and solidarity uncovers the mystery of an 18 year old, Muslim woman from Africa who arrives in Britain after being tortured (in Nigeria) as a child of 14. Alongside her story are those of the therapist who helps her overcome her torture-trauma, and a local bus-driver who supports her, despite the suspicions of his partner and some colleagues. Vulnerable to racist abuse, Alia moves slowly through the challenging asylum process accused of terrorism. She becomes homeless and is raped, but is determined to survive.

Blue Moment as a teaching resource
School pupils will come to the film with a range of attitudes, reflecting the range of views expressed in the film. A PSHCE, teacher-led lesson would create a safe space in which the issues could be debated, including issues which relate to colour, tolerance, citizenship and the current hostile climate towards immigrants for example.

Misinformation that has been widely disseminated (for instance, during the Brexit campaign) can be corrected with accurate statistics from organisations such as the Migration Observatory at Oxford University (e.g. only 7% of immigrants are asylum seekers, 64% of asylum seekers are refused and the UK received only 3% of the asylum claims made across the EU).

The scenes of Alia suffering verbal and sexual abuse in the film can be discussed directly with safeguarding approaches that use the support links from the training notes that are available online. While the rough sleeping scenes in the film can draw discussion to consideration of homelessness and the housing shortage for example.

In these challenging times of growing mental health problems amongst young people it should be widely relevant to watch how a young woman, dealing with depression in therapy, confronts her demons and is helped to recover from her trauma. Surviving her ordeal she can be an inspiration to her peers watching, who are protected from the stigma of direct association by her refugee situation.

This free educational resource, funded by Big Lottery and sponsorships, is available here, where training notes to aid discussion are also provided.

Our thanks to Cathy Denford, Artistic Director of Risky Things theatre & film for providing this article

Take part in the National Enterprise Challenge during Global Entrepreneurship Week - 14th - 18th November

The team behind the UK's largest schools enterprise competition (The Ryman National Enterprise Challenge) are delighted to be announced as an official partner for this year's Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) campaign.

As part of the partnership, they will be running a FREE enterprise competition open to schools during the week, which this year for schools is Monday 14th - Friday 18th November.

The challenge will be a real-life apprentice style task set by one of the UK's most recognisable companies. Groups of students will be able to take part in the challenge as part of a lesson or during their own time.

The challenge will be based on the students developing an advert for a major UK company and will require the students to research the market and consider who they will target along with embracing their creative and presentation skills.

The challenge can be run individually or in groups of no more than 6 students, but how they go about the challenge and the time they invest in the competition is left down to you although a minimum of 2 hours to work on the concept is recommended. There is no limit on the number of teams one school can enter, however students must get permission from the school and a teacher will be required to fill in their details on the registration form.

The challenge which is open to all UK secondary school students will be released at 08.00 on Monday 14th with students having until Friday 18th at 17.00 to upload their entries.

Five shortlisted groups will be invited to attend the Ryman National Enterprise Challenge finals event (summer 2017) as special guests where the winners will be announced.

To pre-register you interest please email gew.challenge@nationalenterprisechallenge.co.uk

You can also keep up to date by following events on social media @_tnec or Facebook.