The Childnet Education Team work directly with over 20,000 children and young people every year, visiting around eight schools a week. In this blog, we hear from Amy, Childnet’s Education Manager about what you can expect from a Childnet Education visit.
What format do the visits take?
The majority of our sessions for young people are “assembly style” workshops, with our team members working through an on-screen presentation. We’re really proud that all the presentations have been designed to be as interactive as possible.
You can expect songs and mini-games for the younger children, or scenarios and group discussions for older ages. We’re always happy to take questions from the audience, and we include plenty of top tips and practical suggestions throughout all of our visits.
Depending on the booking, we might work with smaller groups or classes, or run visits which include whole year groups. However, we do typically cap our sessions at 120 children at a time to ensure that they remain engaging and interactive for everyone.
We also work with specialist settings, including those working with children with special educational needs and disabilities, youth groups, or alternative provision.
What issues do you focus on?
The issues we focus on depend totally on the age range we’re working with! For example, our sessions for 10 and 11 year olds cover everything from online information and reliability to group chats, social media and digital wellbeing. Whilst our sessions for 13 and 14 year olds bring in topics such as online hate and allyship, and online pressure, including the pressure to share nudes.
Our team are working on a range of online safety issues all the time so we always try to include content that is topical and relevant to the groups we work with.
We’re also always more than happy to accommodate requests for more bespoke content. Recently we’ve delivered sessions on topics ranging from online pornography to fake news and misinformation.
Who delivers Childnet’s education visits?
Our Schools’ Team consists of seven team members, all with a background in teaching or youth work. All of our team are passionate about helping young people to stay safe online.
When they first join Childnet, new Education Officers go through at least 3 months of training before they’re signed off to head out and start delivering sessions on their own.
This includes training on all our sessions for young people (we work with children from 3 years old up to 18 years old), our CPD sessions for educators and other professionals, and information sessions for parents and carers.
What do the visits mean for you and the team?
Our education visits are the bread and butter of what we do here at Childnet. The team love being out and about in schools and working with other settings like youth groups.
Whether it’s debating screen time with teens, hearing about the latest gaming trends, or reassuring parents and carers that they’re not on their own, working directly with the audiences affected by online safety issues is what we love to do the most.
Our work in schools helps ensure that all of Childnet’s work is informed by lived experience, and it means we can develop resources that will make a difference in the future.
Visit the Childnet website for more information about a visit from the Education Team or submit our online enquiry form if you’d like to make a booking.
A note about costs
As a small charity, Childnet does charge for visits delivered as part of our Education work. However, we never want cost to be a barrier to young people and other audiences receiving important online safety messages. If you are interested in a visit from the team but are working to a budget, please complete our online enquiry form so the team can work to find a cost-effective solution.
