kidSMART (now Childnet) is an e-safety website with comprehensive resources for children, parents and teachers to use to keep informed and spread the message of staying safe online.

For children there are cartoons / animations with friendly characters in different online scenarios, activities, movies, games, quizzes and advice all age-appropriate up to secondary school.

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This powerpoint features the colourful and naive Smartie the Penguin being given his first tablet, a story for EYFS children to follow and make decisions throughout. It’s very simple to follow, relates to children of this age and has plenty of interactive elements, questions, discussion prompts and even songs. EYFS children should find it engaging and playful and teachers should find that it makes important e-safety points effectively. Personally, having only taught in Key Stage 2, I am not currently confident teaching e-safety at this young age. However, because of resources such as this, I feel that my future practice will definitely take advantage of what is available here.

For parents, there are links to helpful guides on all varieties of technology their children might be using. For teachers, there are further lesson plans for pupils from EYFS to KS2 and you can book an expert to come into your school. It has SEND versions of cartoons / animations with subtitles, BSL signing and symbol-based resources as well as translation into other languages for EAL.

Like I said, comprehensive. And free. I cannot think of a reason why you would not use this site when teaching e-safety. Everything has been thought of and done for you. I will 100% use this site when preparing to teach e-safety regardless of year group or special provision. The importance of the issues presented cannot be understated, e-safety is paramount, much more so than when I was at school, and yet, the website showcases them in an entirely not patronising manner. They seem to know that people visiting this site may not be very confident in using technology, be they kids, teachers or parents. I have met people from all three groups that would confess to this. I myself would say that my subject knowledge in this area is lacking with regards to the specifics of e-safety and I’m sure there would be things I would forget and leave out. Luckily, now I have Childnet.

Childnet feels like a community, friendly and helpful. There are numerous ways in which children can get involved with the wider community here too (competitions, digital leaders, presentations during assembly). Dare I say, it makes e-safety one thing it could so easily not be, FUN. It makes it fun and accessible, encouraging all to participate in creative and constructive ways.

There are alternatives, the NSPCC has their own site with a few good teacher resources but is less for kids themselves. Kidpower seems especially proactive in all manner of child protection but is American and not free. Safety net Kids has useful bullet points for how to stay safe but not much more. A strong competitor (perhaps the wrong word, partner) is CEOP’s own ThinkUKnow which has similarly comprehensive age-appropriate content and more for parents and teachers. Between these this and Childnet, I feel quite confident that I have a treasure trove of useful and effective resources to teach e-safety to any age-group.