Dear Parents/Carers 

Re: Online Safety Concerns 

It has come to our attention that many of our children are using different social media platforms such as Tik Tok /Discord/WhatsApp and Snapchat particularly. 

While some of these platforms are great for socializing and can provide a creative outlet for your child, it can also have some harmful effects. Like with any social media platform, posting videos and pictures regularly leaves your child open to negative reactions and harsh comments. 

In accordance with children's privacy laws, TikTok and such other sites provide an age limit starting from users being 13 years-old to get their own account. It would appear that some of our parents are allowing their children to access via their own accounts, but are not supervising what access is taking place. It has come to our attention that some of our children have hundreds and hundreds of followings in one case over 1300 on a public account. 

Please see below link and extracts from the NSPCC.  

https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/online-safety/online-safety-blog/child-safe-settings-tiktok/ 

How to keep your child safe on TikTok using safety settings 

There are six security settings that can help you to keep TikTok safe for your child and prevent them seeing anything that might worry or upset them: 

1. Family Pairing  
   This allows you to connect your child’s account with your own. It gives you access to parental controls to help manage who they can speak to and how long they can spend on the app. 
    

1. Private account 
   Setting your child’s account to private means that only approved followers will be able to watch their videos. 
    

1. Restricted mode 
   This feature helps to filter out videos that may contain inappropriate or adult topics and stop them appearing on your child’s 'For You Page'. 
    

1. Comment filters 
   Enable to manage who can comment on your child’s videos and stop inappropriate comments from appearing on their feed. 
    

1. Direct messages 
   This can help them manage who can contact them privately on the app. You can choose who can send them direct messages by selecting ‘Friends only’ or ‘No one’. 
    

1. Daily screen time 
   This setting allows you manage how long your child can spend on the app. You can set a daily time limit, and once it’s up you’ll need to enter a passcode to keep using the platform. 

Tips to help children stay safe on social media 

• Review the location settings - Remind them, and explain why, they should not share location on posts, or public forums and chats, videos or with people they do not know.   Review the location settings on their favourite app or game and talk to them about what they are sharing online. 
   
  Sometimes it might be appropriate for your child to share their location with a trusted adult or friend. For example, if they are travelling home alone or arranging to meet a group of friends outside school, then it can be a good way to help keep them safe. 

Remember: If children share their location publicly, it could be seen by someone they do not know.  

This can increase the risk of cyberbullying, stalking or unwanted contact (from friends or others) or becoming a target. 

• Get to know the safety and privacy settings - Explore the safety and privacy settings on any app, to decide which are right to use for your child. Each app has slightly different ways to set up an account, but most have the option to set an account to private, to not allow friend requests, and to hide the user’s location. Explain these settings to your child and the reasons for having them in place. 

• Age ratings and features - Get to know the age ratings of the apps that your child uses. Many have a minimum age of 13 years old to be able to sign up, but you should check the age rating of individual apps to make sure. 
   
  Do not forget that you know your child best, and you might decide that they need to be a little bit older before it is suitable for them. 

There are also some useful links on our school website under the section of Key Information scroll down to the bottom to Safeguarding and there you will find some useful links. 

If you have any concerns you wish to raise directly with the school please contact our Safeguarding Lead Tracy Sexton. 

Yours Sincerely 

 

Chris Harrison