Meadow High School Parent Portal - Weekly Bulletin - Issue 21

Dear Families

On Tuesday it was Safer Internet Day. Across the week, team assemblies and the whole school assembly focused on online safety for our pupils.

I thought I would take this opportunity to tell you some of the work that is done in other areas of the school regarding online safety across the year.

All pupils have a weekly PSHCE (Personal, Social, Health and Citizenship Education) lesson. This includes planned time across the year to address online safety as well as flexibility, which allows individual teachers to adapt the program and teaching content in response to the current issues facing the pupils in the group.
All pupils have computing lessons where online safety is taught both as a discreet topic and embedded into all topics across the year.
All lessons where online-accessible devices are used to teach online safety.
Form Tutors have 25 minutes with their tutor group every morning. During this time, they register pupils and also: learn about what's happening in the world in a child-friendly way using Newsround; practice reading with personally chosen texts or group reading texts; address issues that arise throughout the week, including online safety.
We offer regular parent support sessions regarding online safety and are available to offer bespoke support to families as needed. Please make contact with the school if you feel you need support in this area.

'Parenting' children's screen time and online safety

We know that supporting your child to manage their screen time and what they are accessing online can present a challenge. Here is what the 'internet matters' organisation says about the benefits and risks of screen time. https://www.internetmatters.org/resources/screen-time-tips-to-support-teens/

Benefits

Screen use provides a range of opportunities for creativity and learning.
Access to a wealth of information helps kids build their knowledge.
Technology takes away physical barriers to social connections. For children who feel isolated offline, this is often the only way they can do this.
The internet can also inspire children by helping them discover new passions or interests, such as with skill-building apps.

Risks

Peer pressure from friends to stay online, and the fear of missing out (FOMO) can lead to negative impacts on young people’s wellbeing. This is often due to late nights and a lack of balance between activities.
Additionally, persuasive design such as autoplay and endless social feeds might lead to poor habits when it comes to teens balancing their screen time.
Users who are more active online — such as through interacting with other users — are more likely to experience online harm such as misinformation, bullying or inappropriate content. The more time teens spend online, the greater this chance becomes.
Social media algorithms can lead to echo chambers. As your teen browses, they run the chance of unknowingly falling into this trap. It’s important they limit their screen time but also the type of content they view.
Passive screen time such as on doom-scrolling or bingeing a Netflix series can negatively affect teens’ physical development (i.e. eyes and brain), sleep cycle and behaviour.

Five Top Tips To Balance Screen Time

1) Help them prioritise key tasks over screens.

It can be tempting for children to multitask with a screen, but often it can become a distraction. To help them strike a healthy balance, it’s important to set simple rules that they can follow.

Putting their phone on ‘do not disturb‘ when doing important activities like homework, creating device free zones in the home and taking regular breaks from tech are a great start to help them prioritise family time and sleep over screens. Also, setting a good example with your own screen time use is essential.

2) Stay engaged in what they do online.

Learn how they communicate with others online to better guide them as they become more socially active online and draw from friends, passions and online sources to build their identity. The more you get involved and understand the things your children do online, the easier it is to gain their respect and influence what they do in their digital world.

Also, making screens part of family time, like a movie or an online games night is one way to make it more inclusive and engaging.

3) Equip them with know-how to manage risks online.

Be open and honest about the online risks teens face so they feel confident to talk to you if they get into trouble online – and don’t overreact – remember that the dialogue is important and you want them to come back to you the next time they need support.

Also, make them aware of practical things they can do to deal with risks online, like blocking and reporting on the platforms they use. It’s also important to remind them to think carefully about what they post and share with others online to help them maintain a positive online reputation that will serve them well later on in life when applying for a job or higher education.

4) Encourage them to self-regulate their screen time.

Whatever devices your teen uses, take the time to sit together and review the free tools available to help them assess the time they spend online and make them aware of privacy settings they can use to stay in control of what they share. Also, looking at app permissions can be a powerful way to get them to understand what can happen with their data. All consoles and some social platforms have in-built settings that allow you to set alerts to tell you when you’ve reached a certain amount of time on the platform and give you a summary of time spent to support digital wellbeing.

5) Encourage them to be selective about what they do online.

It’s important to make teens aware that most platforms are purposely built to keep them watching or playing. This can help them avoid mindless scrolling. Encourage them to be more critical about the media they watch and the platforms they use and to explore apps and websites that will compliment what they enjoy in the real world and develop their key skills.