Wildern School pupils explore online respect and relationships
10 February 2022
This Safer Internet Day, Police and Crime Commissioner, Donna Jones, went to see the great work Cyber Ambassadors at Wildern School in Hedge End are doing to keep their peers safe when online.
During her visit the Commissioner saw some of the resources that the Cyber Ambassadors have created and heard how they have not only been sharing these in school to help teach online safety, but also in their community through silver surfer lessons. The current project the Cyber Ambassadors are running is a competition for pupils to create a comic strip about cyberbullying.
Safer Internet Day 2022 celebrates young people’s role in creating a safer internet, whether that is whilst gaming and creating content, or interacting with their friends and peers. This year the theme is ‘All fun and games? Exploring respect and relationships online’ and the Cyber Ambassadors held a session to consider how they will engage with peers around issues such as increased gendered abuse online and cyber-flashing.
Donna Jones said:
“It was fantastic to meet the Cyber Ambassadors at Wildern School. They have been doing some excellent work in tackling online safety issues and have gone above and beyond the original remit of teaching and supporting their peers to reaching out into the community as well.
“It is important that parents, carers and grandparents are switched on to online safety too, not only so they can keep themselves safe but so they can have open and informed conversations with the children in their lives about the benefits and potential dangers of the internet, online gaming and social media.”
“We had a very eye opening discussion about how safe young people feel online, the dangers of the digital world and how it links to safety generally, outside in the real world. We also discussed possible solutions to these issues. As Cyber Ambassadors, we now look forward to these issues being looked into and preventions being put in place to make our local community and the digital world a safer place.” Year 11 Cyber Ambassadors – Jessica McManus, Charlotte Murphy and Rebecca Curley.
The Commissioner’s Cyber Ambassador Scheme provides free peer-to-peer cyber safety education and support to thousands of young people across the Hampshire and IOW policing area. Continuing to grow in reach and recognition, the scheme is now working in partnership with the University of Portsmouth Cyber Crime Clinic, Amazon Web Services, the Cyber Hub Trust, CEOP ambassadors and CISCO Networking Academy. These collaborations will help to expand the scheme even further, bridging cyber safety and cyber security, and will provide Cyber Ambassadors with even more opportunities to increase their knowledge so that they can keep their peers safer online.