January 23, 2014
Towards the end of last term, we piloted an ‘Online Safety for Parents’ session at St Mary’s Catholic Primary School in Northamptonshire. This is an idea we had been toying with for some time, and when Head Teacher Janice Hamilton asked us outright if we would be prepared to punctuate the Year 5 & 6 Online Safety workshops with a session for parents, it seemed like the perfect opportunity.
Together with our wonderful facilitator, Steve, we came up with a workshop idea which saw the parents up on their feet but also facilitated group conversation.
The parents took the opportunity to ask Steve a number of questions about potential online threats and understand better what signs they should be looking out for with their children. They also looked at various ‘parental controls’ tools that are out there and discussed a few real-life scenarios. All questions and conversations kept linking back to excellent work they had just seen performed by their own children.
As always, we spoke to the school after the workshop and were delighted to hear that the workshop and end-of-day session for parents had been a huge success! Janice, Head Teacher at St Mary’s then wrote to us:
“I am writing to say what a very successful day we had with the One Day Drama workshop. It was excellent and extremely valuable in helping the children in KS2 understand the importance of being safe online. The Director immediately established a very good working relationship with the children. He made sure that everybody contributed and that the message was clear to all. Our children responded to his lively and engaging approached and his encouraging manner meant that every child felt that they had played an important role in the presentation, which was watched by parents and the rest of KS2. A most worthwhile part of the afternoon was the time Steve spent with parents, where they could ask him about ways in which they keep their children safe online at home. This was an excellent day and I would wholeheartedly recommend it to other schools who want to get the important message about this challenging subject across to children and their parents.”
Steve, our facilitator, further commented: “There was a warm welcome from staff and children alike and from the start, the children I worked with on my visit were engaged, enthusiastic and very capable. Much of the day has to focus on working together, ensuring all children are involved, allowing even the quietest child to have the confidence to take part in what can be a daunting and challenging task. The children’s ability and not to mention great sense of fun, made the performance and the day enjoyable and valuable, not just for themselves, but for parents and indeed myself too. Finally, it was great to see how many parents came to see the performance and how much of the performance they really engaged in. The after-show discussion with parents made this really apparent and it’s wonderful to note how determined and willing the parents and the school are ready to tackle this very challenging subject.”
Due to the success of the workshop, we have created a dedicated adult Online Safety workshop for staff and parents, called The Cyber Generation Game. For more information about all of our Online Safety options for pupils and adults, please get in touch!