Schools have been doing great work in recent years to educate their pupils on how to stay safe online. It is essential. The NSPCC: reported an 84% rise in online grooming cases in 4 years while Ofcom said that 36% of children aged 8 to 17 have encountered ‘worrying or nasty’ content online.
However, research published by Edurio and The Key in January this year found that, of the 70,000 pupils in England surveyed for The Pupil Safeguarding Review, 88% of pupils surveyed said they felt safe online in the last 6 months, compared to 78% out of school and 75% in school. In other words, more children reported feeling safe online than in school or out of school.
Given what we know about online risks to young people, including many ‘hidden’ dangers, this finding suggests a disconnect between their perception and reality. It begs the question: do children have a false sense of security online?
Why don't they realise the risks?
There are many possible reasons. It could be that pupils are not fully aware of actual incidents such as hacking or predatory adults impersonating children. Perhaps they haven’t been exposed to the real-world consequences of dangerous challenges that go viral on the apps they routinely use. It’s also worth noting that some of the more negative aspects of being online can be insidious, slowly chipping away at an individual’s perception or their ability to cope over a period of time. These would include seeing fake news or content that advocates suicide, body shaming and eating disorders. It may be that some pupils have encountered harmful material already but have not yet recognised the impact on their wellbeing.
Research from The Pupil Safeguarding Review found that being in contact with children whom they don’t know is a key element in making pupils feel unsafe online. Roblox was cited as the platform where they felt most at risk, followed by Snapchat. Our perception is that “stranger danger”, in the form of adults, often poses the most serious threat to children whereas they feel unsafe online in spaces where adults are not obviously present.
What should teachers do?
Two issues for schools are:
- How are we equipping children to navigate these spaces?
- As adults, how much do we really know about them?
Responses from pupils highlighted a potential knowledge gap between adults/educators and their pupils, with one child in the survey saying, 'Since most teachers didn’t grow up in a technological era, they don’t know how to deal with issues such as online grooming and harassment. Most of the time, they just tell students to delete the social media they’re on.'
Maddie Cass, content editor at The Key highlights 5 areas:
Know the nature of the threat - Stay up to date on developments in established and new online risks. Get familiar with the apps and language about their online lives that pupils use. Internet Matters is a great starting point
Accept that pupils will be online, one way or another, so help them to be there safely - We’ve heard from the survey that it’s not effective to tell children they’re too young or to delete their accounts
Update PSHE lessons to help pupils understand hidden threats that they may encounter online - Challenge pupils who say they feel safe already to think about how they could be even safer and provide regular reinforcement to make sure pupils are putting what they know into practice
Adapt online safety lessons and resources to suit pupils with special educational needs or disabilities - These children are known to be especially vulnerable to online harms
If a child tells you they’re experiencing harm online, avoid using victim-blaming language - Feeling as if they are to blame is one of the greatest barriers to a child seeking help and reporting online abuse
Ernest Jenavs is CEO and Co-founder of Edurio. To read the two research reports published as part of The Pupil Safeguarding Review, head to https://home.edurio.com/pupil-safeguarding-review