Corpus Christi

Year 5 & 6 were visited by Northumbria Police this week, who helped us think about the role the internet lays in our lives and how to keep ourselves safe online. The children already knew lots about this from their work in Computing but it was really useful to have a refresher and hear from someone who can talk about the legal side in more detail.

The session began with a recap on the age limits on many of the apps that we use, most of these are aged 13+. Whilst children may be able to use these apps relatively safely, by inputting an incorrect date of birth the app will begin to change what children are exposed to in accordance with how old it thinks the child is. For example, if a child accesses the app aged 10 with a false DOB, when they are 12, the app will think they are 16 and begin to show them content that may be inappropriate.

We talked about keeping personal information private, including when we ‘check in’ online. Doing this puts us at risk because people know that you aren’t at home and may even lead to problems with house insurance in future!

Finally, we discussed a scenario of posting a picture online and how this can get us into trouble with the law depending on what the image contains. This includes sharing images sent to us. Children were surprised to learn that even something shared innocently amongst friends could lead to being in trouble with police. We discussed how this could impact our education and careers in the future.