Is the kidSMART website an effective E-Safety tool?

Each of these pages will provide children with good information and advice to follow but unfortunately, large portions of the website are out-of-date and whilst the information still holds true, children hold trends very dearly (Chernyavskaya, 2015) ergo many will be turned off by the simple fact that they’re being told what to do on Bebo and not Facebook. This is coupled with some cheesy web design and the clear noughties feel to the whole thing make it feel distinctly ‘un-cool’ which will turn many children off to the message it has to say.

The message of online safety is so important in today’s schools that I can’t help but feel it isn’t being tackled appropriately. On the one end of the scale, there’s kidSMART’s out-dated and slightly patronising feel to it, and on the other end you of agencies like CEOP who more-or-less attempt to scare children off the internet.

A recent House of Lords report stated that simply not enough was being done to keep our children safe online. The thing that really peaked my interest was the report said ‘the internet is not designed for children, despite them being the biggest users by age group’; I think this is such a pertinent statement as it really rings true, the internet is unfiltered information streamed from across the globe which directly contradicts the way that children have received information, filtered directly from their parent, for centuries. When we look at statistics such as the pictures below

it becomes evident that young people’s internet usage will continue to grow across a variety of devices; therefore it is unequivocally our responsibility to educate them on how to do so safely. Now with all that in mind, when you think about, just how crucial online safety really is for our children, I think it becomes evident that the kidSMART website isn’t quite up to scratch. Whilst it provides a good centre of information for children, I would argue that children deserve and need a better resource which is tailored to the modern child’s uniquely developing sensibilities.