WhatsApp has generally been seen as a safer social media option for children. However, schools are increasingly reporting that the platform is a source of problems, particularly with younger children. This page aims to provide parents and carers with sufficient information to ensure they are aware of the risks that come with the app, and Read more about WhatsApp – should parents be concerned?[…]
The free OSA CPD course for school staff is rapidly growing in popularity. A powerful safeguarding tool for ensuring all staff in your school community are aware of the online risks to children, how to help children stay safe, statutory requirements for staff, and staff responsibilities in their own use of social media. Details of Read more about Review of staff online safety CPD[…]
The debate as to whether children should be allowed to bring phones into school has raged for quite some time, with the French government notably taking a firm step of banning phones in primary, junior and middle schools from September. A number of other countries around the world are deciding whether to follow France’s lead. Read more about Culture Secretary seeks school phone ban[…]
The Online Safety Alliance has produced a set of eight glossy, colour posters to create an instant display for online safety / e-safety. Under the new statutory guidance for safeguarding, issues of online safety are taking more importance than ever. Schools need to be able to show that they are developing awareness among their pupils. Read more about Free online safety posters[…]
Safer Internet Day 2018 is fast approaching. On Tuesday 6th February schools up and down the country will be turning their attention to helping their pupils develop the knowledge and skills needed to stay safe online. Why not go the extra mile this year and get your pupils to undertake the OSA Certificate of Online Read more about Resources for Safer Internet Day 2018[…]
With Christmas just around the corner many parents will be turning to digital devices to be the present their teen or tween child will be most excited about. Many of these newly purchased devices will be disappearing into the bedrooms of children with doors closed. Parents need to be very concerned about how these devices Read more about Live streaming fears[…]
November 2017 Updates to content Peer-to-peer grooming is becoming an increasing problem, particularly with regard to encouraging sharing of inappropriate images. Games of ‘dare’ are being used which start small but lead the victim towards sharing of naked images. Our grooming unit has been updated to raise awareness of this and to encourage children to Read more about Certificate of Online Safety updates[…]
Updated: May 25th 2022 The web presence of the Online Safety Alliance is managed by What2Learn Ltd. What2Learn Ltd is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office. What2Learn Ltd and the OSA aim to be as clear as possible about how and why we use information about you so that you can be confident that your Read more about Privacy Policy[…]
New research from the think-tank Demos has found that 26% of 16-18 year olds surveyed admitted they had ‘bullied or insulted someone else online’. It also indicated that there is a gender imbalance in this, with 32% of boys involved in online bullying in comparison to 22% of girls. These figures are of course likely Read more about Quarter of young people admit to bullying[…]
Newspapers are today reporting more evidence of the rising national crisis in mental health among girls in the UK. Quoted statistics indicate that there has been a staggering 68% rise in hospital admissions because of self-harm among girls under 17 in the past decade. Admissions now stand at 17,500 but it is worth remembering that Read more about The rise of self-harm[…]
While many people are understandably more than a little concerned about the colossal power wielded by Google and its influence on what we see, think and believe, it has to be said that sometimes they do create some pretty amazing tools for us all to use for our favourite price (free). As such, it was Read more about Interland: Be Internet Awesome[…]
Image-based tools like Snapchat and Instagram have become the social media of choice for the majority of youngsters, with a great proportion creating accounts on such systems long before they have reached the required minimum age of 13. This makes the latest major update to Snapchat particularly alarming and online safety experts are asking schools Read more about Snap Map Warning[…]
“Digital literacy should be the fourth pillar of a child’s education alongside reading, writing and mathematics”. “No child should leave school without an adequate standard of digital literacy”. These are just two of the quotes from the recently published House of Lords report ‘Growing up with the internet’. The report acknowledges the benefits the Internet Read more about The fourth pillar of education[…]
The year 2016 marked the tenth birthday of Twitter. Following a decade of people expressing their thoughts, musings and observations in 140 characters or less you would think that we would all be a little more aware of the damage we can do to ourselves with the world’s most popular micro-blogging website. Unfortunately, this does Read more about Twitter – a career killer in 2016?[…]
Sextortion is the latest online threat which has been gaining widespread news coverage in the past couple of weeks. This comes on the back of a drive from the National Crime Agency to raise awareness of this issue which has even resulted in a number of young males committing suicide this year. The NCA: “Criminals Read more about Sextortion warnings[…]
Revenge pornography has received much coverage this week with the publication of statistics on prosecutions since the new ‘Revenge Porn’ legislation came into effect in April 2015. The crime often involves an ex-partner uploading sexual images of the victim to cause the victim humiliation or embarrassment. In the few months from the law coming into Read more about Revenge porn amongst children[…]