Prep School Celebrates Safer Internet Day 2011

The Prep School set aside the usual Tuesday timetable this week to celebrate Safer Internet Day.  The theme for this year's event was online gaming which now accounts for about 20% of all Internet based activity amongst young people.

The day began with an assembly led by the head of ICT in the Prep School, Phil Shuttleworth, which focused on the key message of the day; the Internet is an exciting place but it is very important that your online activity is age-appropriate and you use technology safely.

		There were a number of activities for all of the children to celebrate the many things they can do online whilst exploring some of the safety issues associated with Internet gaming.  These included designing their own online game environments and writing comic strips to illustrate a key message from a short play script about gaming addiction.  It was great to see so much energy and enthusiasm from the children; they produced some fantastic work and were so willing to discuss and exchange ideas with each other about the day's theme.
Y6 Pupils listing favourite online games	Creating safety posters in Y3

Y2 work based around CEOP's `Hector's World'	Y3 drama sketch about online gaming	Y4 creating posters to celebrate `My Life Online'	Y4 learning about e-safety using CEOP's `Cyber-Cafe' website

In the afternoon Year 3 to Year 6 assembled in the hall to watch some of the children perform ‘It’s Only a Game’, the play studied in the morning. This was followed by a debate led by six children from Y6, who presented arguments for and against limiting online gaming to the weekend. They took questions from the audience, which prompted some very interesting exchange of views. Using ActivExpression devices every child voted with the results surprisingly close!

		"I enjoyed voting in the debate the most" Y3 Pupil	"We learn about staying safe on the Internet" Y2 pupil
My Life Online	E-safety tips by Children in Year 4

"I am going to change my settings on X-Box Live so I can only play against people I know." Y5 Pupil

Two of our Year 6 pupils, Iolanta and Charlie, along with Mr King and sixth-formers Dominic and Isabella, featured on the Safer Internet Day radio station, broadcast worldwide, sharing our e-safety work at HCS. They talked about the work we were doing and discussed the use of online gaming amongst young people. 

The day finished with three workshops for the children to get creative and share the Safer Internet Day message through music or story writing. Children in Years 4 to 6 took up the challenge of creating a song based around Childnet’s ‘SMART’ rules for staying safe online, whilst others put their writing skills to good use by writing a story centred on Internet gaming. These will be published over the coming weeks! Some children also worked on putting together a quiz to find out how much parents really know about the Internet – full details will be available soon.

	Children performed `It's Only a Game' followed by a lively and interesting debate Children have 2-3 hours less sleep than 10 years ago due to Internet based activities including online gaming.
	Online games are fun and a form of entertainment for adults and children.

“My children thought it was fantastic, and all the things I have been trying to tell them they are now doing.” Prep School parent

The day would not have been as successful as it was without the time and efforts of many people and I would like to thank everyone involved for their part in making it such an enjoyable and rewarding day for the children. Mr Shuttleworth