Your right to be safe and secure online: Primary

Overview

Audience

Primary (ages 7 to 11)

Timing

60 minutes

Learning outcomes

Learners will be able to:

• give examples of their rights as a child
• recognise how these rights may apply online
• explore how challenges may exist around exercising their rights online

Key vocabulary

Laws, rights, responsibilities, uphold, support, protection, anonymous, anonymity, safe, secure, happy, healthy

Resources

PowerPoint slides, United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) symbols resource, overview poster and Articles cards, scissors

Preparation

• Read through the ‘An educational practitioner’s guide to children’s rights online’. This gives a clear understanding of the area and ensures you are familiar with your school’s safeguarding policy, as well as the Wales Safeguarding Procedures in the event of a disclosure or concerns about a learner’s safety or wellbeing. For more information, see the statutory guidance ‘Keeping learners safe’.
• Print out the UNCRC overview poster/Articles cards (depending on which is most accessible for your learners) – one copy per pair/small group.
• Print out slides 8 to 9 of the PowerPoint presentation – one set of each per pair.

Curriculum links

This resource supports activities delivered as part of the Health and Well-being Area of Learning and Experience.

Key questions (to use as discussion starters or prompts)

• What are rights?
• What are your rights? How do you know what they are?
• Who helps make sure your rights are respected and upheld?
• Which rights apply to your online use and experiences?
• Whose responsibility is it to uphold your rights online?
• What laws do you know of that can protect you online?
• Is it ever hard to uphold your rights online? If so, why?
• Who can you ask for help if you are worried about something online?

Starter activity (10 minutes)

Using the accompanying PowerPoint slides for this lesson plan, start by asking learners:

• What are your rights? How do you know what they are?

Then, based on either the UNCRC overview poster or Articles cards, briefly explain the rights to learners and invite them to ask any questions about Articles they think are unclear.

Ask learners ‘Who upholds your rights?’. Slide 6 gives examples of people/groups responsible for protecting and upholding children’s rights online and offline.

Activity 1: What are my rights online? (15 minutes)

Working in pairs or small groups, ask learners to consider which of their rights they feel are important online. They should record this by sorting the UNCRC Articles cards into piles, or circling on the UNCRC overview poster the rights they feel are important online.

Encourage learners to feed back their ideas to the class and see if other learners agree/disagree. Also explain that all the UNCRC Articles apply online, but that some are more relevant than others.

In pairs, give learners the 2 sets of cards from slides 8 to 9. One set outlines some Articles that are directly related to children’s activities online, and the other set provides examples of how these rights could be upheld. Give pairs 5 minutes to match each Article to the relevant example. Some blank cards are also provided for learners to record further examples, or include additional Articles that they feel are relevant.

Go through the answers with learners and invite them to share any additional examples that they have considered.

Activity 2: The big question (30 minutes)

This activity takes the form of a loosely structured debate to explore how online contexts can support or violate children’s rights.

Using slide 10, show learners the ‘big question’ – ‘Does being anonymous online support your rights as a child, or go against them?’

Discuss the term ‘anonymous’ – what does it mean and what examples are learners aware of?

Divide the class into 2 groups to discuss the issue further. One group should take the position that anonymity can help support children’s rights, the other group should argue that anonymity may violate some rights. You may wish to break these 2 groups into smaller groups to encourage participation and discussion from all learners.

Before asking the groups to consider their viewpoint further, ask learners to consider why someone might want to be anonymous online. After discussing the question, show them some possible motives on slide 11. The left column gives positive motives, with negative ones on the right.

Give each group 15 minutes to discuss their viewpoint – slide 12 provides some suggested prompts to help direct their thinking. You can also direct them to look again at the UNCRC and consider whether anonymity would be a positive or negative thing for each Article. Encourage learners to write down as many reasons as they can for how anonymity affects children’s rights, and to try and give examples for each one.

Bring the groups back together and allow them to explain their viewpoint and share their reasons. Once all views have been heard, ask learners to vote on whether they believe overall that online anonymity is beneficial for children’s rights.

Plenary (5 minutes)

Remind learners that being online should be a positive experience that makes them feel happy, safe and secure. If anything they see online makes them worried, uncomfortable or upset, they should always tell a trusted adult. You may wish to spend a few minutes discussing which adults can help them, in and out of school. This helpful article from Meic outlines strategies a learner could use to start a conversation with an adult.

Remind learners that they can also contact Meic, which offers free information, advocacy and advice for children and young people in Wales up to the age of 25. Call Meic for free on 080880 23456, text on 84001, or send instant messages at www.meic.cymru. The service is open from 8a.m. to midnight, 7 days a week.

Opportunities to extend the learning

Promoting rights

Explore with learners some different ways that they could raise awareness of children’s rights online with other learners. This could involve developing an awareness campaign, running an assembly, or introducing a peer-mentoring scheme, such as ‘digital leaders’, to give some learners additional responsibilities.

Keeping safe online

The lesson can be used as a springboard into additional learning about issues such as privacy and data or online hate.