BARCLAYCARD are working with, ‘It’s Your Child’s Life’ to provide these free workshops for parents who feel they may benefit. Free tea, coffee and biscuits on arrival at Barclaycard, Norwich Way, Kirkby L32 8UG. Refreshments served from 9am. Sign up today! Text or Phone Sharon Dennis  on 07900736618 today to get your place.

Thurs 5th July  9.30 – 11.30am         Floor 4 meeting room        10 Places
Self-confidence	Overcoming challenges 30 mins •       To help understand that we grow by overcoming challenges, that fear is normal and something everyone experiences and to realise that by treating challenges as opportunities, we can find reasons to overcome our fears Thinking confidently 30–45 mins •       Explore how you think about past events and how this shapes how you feel about themselves and how you respond to events in the future. To identify helpful ways to explain past events that will help you be more confident in yourselves and more optimistic about the future
Fri 6th July  9.30 – 11.30am           Floor 2 meeting room          10 Places
CV Skills	Applications that work – 45 mins •       By the end of this session you will be able to review a CV, including their own, and identify areas for improvement. You will also be able to identify key words in a job advertisement, and consider how to tailor a CV in response to a specific job advertisement CV surgery – 45-60 mins •       If you have a CV already we can give you advice on how to improve it •       We can also look at how you go about writing a strong covering letter to support an application

 

Monday 16th July  9.30 – 11.30am    Floor 2 meeting room     10 Places
Finding Employment	How can you find opportunities? 60 mins •       To prompt discussion and exploration of the different ways to find employment and identify that many opportunities may not be advertised •       To explore the skill of networking as a way to find out about ‘hidden’ jobs through the people you know CV surgery 45 mins •       If you have a CV already we can give you advice on how to improve it •       We can also take the opportunity to work with you on your personal statement
Thursday 19th July 9.30 – 11.30am     Floor 4 meeting room     10 Places
Turning your passion into a business	Turning your passion into a business 60 mins •       To help you understand the difference between enterprise and entrepreneurship •       To help you understand that they can use enterprise skills to turn something they love doing into a business •       To introduce the idea of different business structures and types

Recently we have noticed an increasing number of young people talking about the game ‘Fortnite’. In this message we are trying to give guidance to parents about Fortnite, looking at what the game is and some of the things to be aware of.

What is Fortnite?

Fortnight is an online game, which includes Battle Royale, where players do not have to pay to play. In Battle Royale, 100 players compete against each other to be the last person standing in player vs player (PVP) combat.

Users play against people of different ages from across the world, and can talk and interact with each other as they play through the in-game chat feature.

What age rating is Fortnite?

Fortnite has a PEGI rating of 12, PEGI have said this is due to the: ‘frequent scenes of mild violence. It is not suitable for persons under 12 years of age’.

This PEGI rating only takes into account the content in the game and not the contact element, where players may be exposed to swearing and offensive language from strangers, either through audio or on-screen text chat.

What do I need to know?

You need to create an account

In order to play Fortnite you have to create an account. To create this account you need to provide an email address (which you will have to verify) and display/user name. However you are not asked your age in order to create an account.

You are playing against other players

As Fortnite is an online game you willplay against players of different ages from across the world. You cannot turn the in game chats off or choose who you play against.

You can make in game purchases

Although Battle Royale is free to play, other aspects of the game are not. There are packs which give you different access to the full game and extensions, bonuses and weapons. These start at £34.99 and go up to £119.99. The game does ask players to make additional in-game purchases whilst playing, though these are not required to play the game.

There is animated violence

Fortnite does feature violence when players are in combat with each other, the animation of the game is very cartoonish, and the violence isn’t bloody or gory. However, it is worth noting that the aim of Fortnite is to defeat other players by fighting against them.

Where you can play

Fortnite is currently available on PC, Mac, PlayStation and XBox , and will soon be available on IOS (apple products). It is downloadable from the Fortnite website, this download gives access to both the free and paid for versions of the game.

 

Online safety: YouTube restricted mode

The UK Safer Internet Centre has blogged a parent’s guide to YouTube restricted mode. It covers what restricted mode is, how it works, and how it can be implemented. Advice includes: giving children strategies to deal with unwanted content; exploring further settings, such as disabling the autoplay feature to ensure no unwanted videos automatically start playing; and enabling filtering systems.

Source: UK Safer Internet Centre  Date: 10 May 2018

The NSPCC’s annual conference takes place on 20-21 June 2018 in London. The conference will feature talks from sector leaders, and explore the latest research and insight on keeping children safe in the digital age. The conference will also see the launch of the NSPCC’s How safe are our children? 2018 report, a comprehensive overview of the latest child protection data from the UK.

Source: NSPCC conference: How safe are our children? Growing up online

Today I had the pleasure of visiting Anfield Community Bakery. Homebaked is a community land trust and co-operative bakery situated on the boundary between the neighbourhoods of Everton and Anfield, just opposite the Liverpool Football Club. The project is co-owned and co-produced by people who live and work in our area. Starting from having saved our iconic neighbourhood bakery from demolition and developed it into a thriving community-run business with a beautiful apartment above we are proposing to regenerate our high street ‘brick by brick and loaf by loaf’, using money that is spent in the neighbourhood to benefit our communities. We talker about how we could become partners in learning and have many exciting ideas of how we can support each other in the community! So keep reading and look out for some engaging projects coming up soon! 

Today we were joined by teaching students from Hope University. They came to show our KS1 children some engaging phonics lessons and all the children were actively involved in their learning. We had Phonics Jenga, Phonics Fishing, Phonics Washing Line game, and Phonics fly swat game! All the children enjoyed the students visit and were keen to show the students how great they are at phonics.

The NSPCC will be visiting our school to talk to parents about online safety. If you have any concerns or would like to know more about how we can protect our children in relation to online safety please come along to the short session organised by the NSPCC & O2.

The session will take place in the media suite on the Tuesday 6.3.18 at 9:00am. 

Everyone is welcome!

 

Friday saw our second session of Building A Bridge to Books. We looked at making our first book and the children became authors and decorated their books themselves. Their parents helped teach the children lots of early reading behaviours and it was so lovely to watch the children engaging their parents in a love of reading. Next week we are making a cookery book with our favourite recipes in!   

During our Friday Celebration Assembly the Internet Safety Poster winners were announced. The judging was really difficult as the quality was so high and we even awarded highly commended prizes to the runners up. The winners were judged on their effectiveness as information posters and judged on how much they stood out and advertised the theme of Internet Safety. Look out for the photos of the winners coming soon.

Our children have enjoyed arranging and taking part in our pretend wedding. For more details and lots of pictures of the happy couple and wedding guests see EYFS Key Stage page.

All the children are really engaging in the variety of learning activities to help us all stay safe on line. KS1 have been watching “Meet the Malwares” and creating their safety posters whilst Year 6 are watching “The best and worst of life online”. https://www.bbc.com/ownit/its-personal/mean-comments-film

The following leaflet will be available in Reception from Thursday onwards. Please feel free to take one.

https://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/keeping-children-safe/share-aware/share-aware-schools-resources-form/

Tuesday 6th Feb is Internet Safety Day. The children will be completing a poster to be displayed around the school. The prizes are great so children: don’t forget to enter!

 

We will be launching our annual poster competition supporting Internet Safety Day on Tuesday February 6th 2018. The prizes will be just as good as always and the winning poster will be made into a school poster and displayed around the school. Good Luck!

Mrs Bowcock

The BBC has launched Own It, a website for 9 to 12 year olds to help them maximise opportunities in the digital world as well as helping them to develop the confidence and resilience to tackle the everyday challenges they face online. The site includes quick links to charities and organisations including Childline to provide urgent support should children need it.

Source: BBC press release  Date: 06 December 2017

Further information: BBC website: Own It

Please find a really useful guide to You Tube safety for your children on our Internet Safety page. It highlights the safety options that need to be raised with any children using You Tube and also safety options for parents.

In the latest research by anti-bullying charity Ditch the Label it was found that69% of young people under 20 have done something abusive to another person online, while 17% of young people have experienced cyberbullying. We give advice for parents and carers concerned about cyberbullying and practical tips for how they can support their child.

Discussing online bullying with your child

It’s important to have regular conversations with your child about the online world, including issues like cyberbullying. This will help you to understand if they have ever experienced or witnessed online bullying for themselves, and give you an opportunity to support them and reassure them that you are always there to help.

Some questions which you could ask your child are:

• How can you be kind online?
• What would you do if someone was being unkind online?
• What do you think cyberbullying is?
• How is it different to physical bullying?

See our conversation starters for more help starting this conversation.

Developing empathy

We also need to support children in developing empathy and understanding the impact of their online actions. While it might be difficult to think about your child behaving negatively towards someone else, it’s worth bearing in mind that sometimes young people find it hard to identify what bullying is and may just think the behaviour is ‘banter’ and to be expected. It’s important they recognise what behaviour is acceptable and recognise how online actions can affect others. This can begin as soon as children start using technology; our storybook Digiduck’s Big Decision helps even the youngest internet users develop this understanding.

If your child has experienced cyberbullying:

• Let them talk
  Give them the space to share what they want to in their way and listen. Try to avoid the temptation to interrupt because you know what’s going on, prompt if necessary but let them do most of the talking.
• Don’t be shocked by what they tell you
  If there’s one sure way to put a child off seeking help, it’s making them feel embarrassed or ashamed about why they’re asking for help. Times change and some of the things young people do today may make us cringe sometimes, but the inherent behaviour is the same as it was when we were their age.
• Don’t deny access to technology
  When we speak to young people about barriers to getting help they often share that they are worried that their device may be taken away from them. Reassure them that this won’t happen if they speak up about something that has been worrying them online.
• Encourage them not to retaliate
  Although this can seem like the most tempting thing to do in a situation like this it’s very important that you do not retaliate to the cyberbullying. Most of the time the bully is looking for a reaction when they’re teasing or calling someone nasty names. Your child may wish to reply and ask the person to stop sending messages however this is not necessary and action can be taken without replying.
• Save the evidence
  It’s important to keep the cyberbullying messages that a child has received, whether through taking screenshots or saving the messages on the device. Saving the messages allows you to have evidence when reporting the cyberbullying.
• Talk to their school
  Schools play a vital role in the resolution of abusive online behaviours. They have a plethora of effective tools such as the Enable anti-bullying toolkit. They have anti-bullying and behavioural policies in place in order to provide a duty of care to all who attend. As such, they will want to know about any incidences that could potentially affect a child’s wellbeing. Take the evidence of bullying and any additional details about the context of the situation and length of time it has been going on for. It is helpful to discuss this with your child and you may want to speak to the school together.
• Talk to the police
  If you think that your child is in immediate danger don’t hesitate to call the police. Equally, if there is a direct threat of violence or harm within any conversation then you may also wish to contact your local police for support. As parents, any incident involving children will be extremely emotive. There has been a lot of stories about online abuse in the media and the majority of bullying issues can be resolved satisfactorily with support from your child’s school.

We looked at what it meant to be different, we talked with our talking buddies about how we were different and then shared our learning with our friends. Kole told us all it was OK to be a different colour as colour doesn’t matter, and it doesn’t matter how tall or small you are or what colour our eyes or hair is because we are all different but we are all equal. We also watched the story Rainbow Fish by Marcus Ffister about a Rainbow Fish who is a beautiful fish who finds friendship and happiness when he learns to share.

Gaming: resources for parents and carers

The UK Safer Internet Centre has published a leaflet for parents and carers providing information and advice about online gaming, and how to help support children and young people enjoy online games positively and safely.

Source: UK Safer Internet Centre  Date: 31 October 2017

Removing an online image or video

Childline is working with the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) to help young people who want to remove sexually explicit images of themselves from the internet. Young people can use the Childline portal to anonymously verify their identity using the Yoti app, and then submit their application to the IWF to have the image removed wherever it appears on the internet.

Source:

Childline  Date: 20 October 2017