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Using KIA with Parents

Many parents and carers look to schools for advice about how they should best supervise and support their children's use of the internet at home. This provides the opportunity to develop good home-school links and ensure that there is greater consistency between safety guidelines in the school and the home.

‘Know IT All for Parents’ has been designed as a stand-alone resource which schools can give to parents or carers to work through on their own. As you will see when you access the Parents and Carers section, there is advice on a whole range of issues, including the benefits of the internet, as well as keeping children safe when they are using some of the new applications such as Social Networking or Instant Messenger.

There are details on how to order bulk quantities of this resource for your school on the booklet inside the CD-ROM case. The resource is free for schools.

In addition to distributing the CD-ROM there are a number of other ways in which schools can use this resource, including:

Using KIA in a parents’ evening

On the CD there is a short presentation which gives an overview of the issues for parents. This would be suitable to play at the start of a parents’ evening. Select this link to view the presentation.

This presentation has been translated into British Sign Language, Arabic, Mandarin, Polish, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati and Urdu. Because of the limited disc space on the CD, the language translations for this section are in voice and text only, but the full video can be accessed at www.childnet-int.org/kia/languages

Following the showing of this overview presentation you could present the Family Agreement section, which gives parents and carers a helpful set of agreements that they can make with their children about safe and appropriate use of the internet within the home. Select this link to go to the Family Agreement.

Childnet has also developed a PowerPoint presentation called ‘Mind the Gap’, which comes complete with a script and slides. This can be downloaded from www.kidsmart.org.uk/downloads/mindthegap.ppt

Using KIA to reinforce the school’s Acceptable Use Policy

Many schools issue an Acceptable Use Policy to parents, which outlines the rules expected of pupils when using the internet at school. If your school is issuing such a policy you could order bulk quantities of the ‘Know IT All for Parents’ CD and send this home when you issue or update this policy. This will highlight the importance of the AUP as well as help educate parents about the ways they can support their children’s safe and responsible use of the internet both within the school and at home.

Childnet has produced a range of leaflets for parents, which schools can distribute to parents. Some of these can be downloaded as PDFs from the Info Centre or can be ordered from www.childnet-int.org/order These have also been translated into several different languages.

There is also important advice about how schools can involve parents in creating internet safety policies in schools, produced by Becta. Select this link to download or order this resource.

There is also a Becta guide on how to involve parents and the community in e-safety education. Select this link to download or order this resource.