A new approach to e-safety for Northampton High School as we join nationwide peer education programme

Pupils from our Junior School are set to become Digital Leaders after joining an innovative new internet safety programme from UK charity, Childnet International.

Launched in September 2015, the Childnet Digital Leaders Programme aimed to empower young people to champion digital citizenship and digital creativity within their schools and to educate their peers, parents and teachers about staying safe online. The programme was initially aimed at secondary schools and after seeing incredible success, the programme was launched for primary schools in October 2016.

By signing up to the programme, our Junior School joins an exciting online community, where they can access training and support from Childnet’s expert team, record achievements, and collaborate and share inspiration with schools across the UK. Once they have completed the training, our girls will become ‘digital leaders’, delivering impactful e-safety messages in school throughout the year through providing training, resources and activities. Supported by Facebook and the European Union, the programme will also give young people opportunities to engage with leading technology companies and have a say in creating a better internet for the future.

By harnessing the power of youth voice Childnet’s new programme will help us to strengthen our e-safety provision.

In 2014, school inspectors in the UK set out that outstanding e-safety practice in schools involves the active involvement and leadership of young people, but evaluation data from the school self-assessment tool 360 Degree Safe found that while this is improving year on year, it is still one of the weakest areas of e-safety provision in schools. As CEO of Childnet, Will Gardner, explains the programme will help schools work towards an outstanding whole school community approach to e-safety.

“We are excited to be continuing and expanding this programme, which will help build a new approach to e-safety, putting young people at the heart of the solution. This programme has been running for over a year, with support from Facebook, and the impact of the programme is clear – from safer online behaviours of pupils to the involvement of young people in developing e-safety policies and wider.”

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