18 July 2025

Image of Online Safety in the Holidays

Online Summer Safety

Dear Parents/Carers 

With the summer holidays upon us, young people are likely to have more unsupervised time, a lot of which may be spent online. Whilst the internet is a great tool for keeping in touch with friends and family, learning new skills and exploring interests, it can also pose significant risk to young people. We would like to remind you, once again, of these.  

 

You should particularly be aware of the risk of: 

 

  • your child seeing offensive images and messages; 

  • the presence of strangers who may be there to 'groom' young people; 

  • your child being encouraged to participate in dangerous online challenges or harmful activities 

  • cyberbullying (bullying using digital technology) 

  • identity theft and other scams 

 

You will know from our ICT Acceptable Use policy that the school uses a monitoring system that monitors the language used, the keywords searched and the sites that students access or attempt to access whilst using any school device, whether in school or at home.   

Under normal circumstances this is only monitored by school staff during term time and throughout the school day.  

We, therefore, would like to remind you of the responsibility that parents and carers have, and the crucial role they should play in discussions regarding internet safety and in monitoring their child’s online activity outside of school hours and throughout the holidays. 

The link below will take you to some very practical advice from the NSPCC. 

https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/safeguarding-child-protection/social-media-and-online-safety 

Furthermore, Ofcom has developed a guide to support parents/carers in helping their children tobe safer online. 

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/parents?es_c=A6956A277ADAE34FFA087081B7C44985&es_cl=CD786B09908AE974B857D821B3390925&es_id=ph7%c2%a3o1 

If you are worried that your child may be at risk of significant harm or that a crime has been committed, you must contact the police immediately. 

Kind regards 

 

Mrs M Nutt 

Assistant Principal