At Childnet, we know the online world is changing all the time. In our work with schools, we often hear how challenging it can be to find time to ensure teaching and learning materials are up-to-date and relevant. To help with this, the Education Team have updated two of our popular resources on key topics: screen time and livestreaming.
What can educators expect from the updated resources?
The Screen Time and Healthy Balance resource contains a collection of quick activities for use with 7-11 year olds to help explore the concept of screen time. It includes ideas for activities on the signs someone has had too much screen time and around finding a healthy balance between online and offline activities. This resource has been updated to keep the activities relevant and up to date in line with what we hear from young people in our school sessions.
The To Stream Or Not To Stream resource contains activities to generate discussions about livestreaming with 11+ year olds. This contains information for teachers about livestreaming, two activities with scenarios to encourage discussion and some livestreaming advice from Childnet’s Digital Champions and Youth Advisory Board. This resource has been updated to reflect the changes that have happened in live streaming and how this is currently used by young people.
Why are these topics so relevant at the moment?
In our work in schools, screen time is a topic that frequently comes up with young people and parents and carers as something they would like more support with. Ofcom’s Media Use and Attitudes Report 2024 found that 31% of 8-11 year olds felt their screen time was too high, which shows the importance of providing support and discussion about screen time with children this age.
Streaming is a popular feature on social media t, with many platforms now providing livestreaming capabilities. Many young people use livestreaming, with 79% of 12 – 15 year olds watching live streams and 20% live streaming their own content (Ofcom, 2024). This shows how vital it is to talk to young people about how to do this safely.
What role did young people play in the updates?
Prioritising youth voice is a key part of Childnet’s values as it means that we can reflect the needs and wants of young people, whilst making sure we are up to date on key developments for them.
The Childnet Education Team work directly with over 20,000 children and young people every year giving them the opportunity to share current risks, opinions and issues with us. This means that all the work we do is informed by youth voice and what we’re hearing from children and young people.
In our livestreaming resource, we have a poster of tips from young people about livestreaming. To do this, we held discussions with Childnet’s Digital Champions and Youth Advisory board to hear how they feel young people use livestreaming, the risks they might face and advice they would have. Their input was invaluable, and they came up with many useful tips that have been included in the resource.
What other resources have been informed by your work with young people?
Childnet’s Youth Advisory Board helped develop our Reliability Online resource. This covers a variety of risks around reliability online such as AI generated imagery, fake news and scams in an interactive and gamified style. The Childnet Youth Advisory Board helped to develop the scenarios and contributed video clips of themselves sharing key advice.
Our LGBT+ History Month poster championed youth voice by asking young people questions such as ‘What challenges do you think LGBT+ young people currently face online?’ and ‘What more can be done to make the online world safer for the LGBT+ community?’. This poster can be used to spark conversations with young people through seeing their responses.
Childnet’s Youth Voice Toolkit is a great resource to build opportunities for youth voice into your own online safety provision. This toolkit can help you start conversations with young people to find out the issues that matter to them, the changes they want to see and what support they need.
