Schools 'should help children with social media risk' - compulsory lessons in Y6 & Y7?

Anyone know what "online resilience lessons" would actually be? And who would teach them...the mature teacher who doesn't use social media, perhaps?


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42563173

 

Taking the ******* phones off them.

 

Who? Schools? That won't protect the children after school, will it?

 

Parents. Don't gift them until they are sixteen. Phone are not shoes. Children can live without them.

If children bring phones into school, take the ******* things off them.

 

Do you actually think most parents will do this? And, if pupils have them hidden, how much time should schools spend searching for them every day?

I really don't think simplistic 'solutions' will work here...even though I wish they would.

 

No, because most parents think phones are shoes.

Pupils are very bad at hiding things they are using.

Sending children online for relief from online problems is like prescribing methadone for heroin addiction.

 

I don't think we'll agree on this, but thanks for your contribution to the debate.

 

When parents are relocating their families rather than taking luxury consumer goods away from their children and when teachers are expected to train children in the use of those same luxury consumer goods then there is no debate, there is insanity and there is common sense.

Don't give kids phones. If they bring phones into schools, confiscate them.

 

"Schools" these days seems to mean - parent, police, social services, mental health counsellors, borstal, young offenders institutes. No funding given for anything yet expected to sort out the woes of society. Makes me weep!

 

The genie's well and truly out of the bottle with regard to mobile phones. It is an issue we are just going to have to live with.

• Confiscate phones - parents: 'My child needs the phone for emergencies', 'They use it to check facts', 'Breech of human rights' etc Agro in classroom as you try to get student to hand over phone. Arguments. If this is to work, SLT should be on school gates confiscating phones from kids as they enter the premises but our SLT (like yours I suspect) are far too grand for this.
• Phones in class - disruption, distraction, off task time.
• Lost/stolen phones - parents insist school finds it despite being asked not to bring in phones
• Zombie generation as students and adults huddle in groups or walk around gawping at screens

I'm glad I'm retiring fully in the summer.

 

It's a tricky one.
Yes schools "should" be part of a strategy to protect youngsters as they move towards their teens and social media.
The problem is that the kids think that this is a secret they have discovered. It's part of their moving towards independence. What does their "ancient" teacher know about social media? (Remember, as far as kids are concerned a teacher in their 20s is ancient). For some of the vulnerable kids, anything a teacher says may well be the trigger to do the opposite.
In addition, the year 5/6 teacher is focused on tests and targets, reading and maths and what their head thinks the next visit from OFSTED will be looking for. Where will.it fit into a crowded timetable?
Some posters are saying schools should remove phones. I suspect the problems aren't in school. I suspect most good schools already have effective policies for keeping phones out of kids' hands while their in school. The problems will be with the messages they get at home from people they think are their friends.
It's surprising how addictive "likes" are. When TES introduced them, I was sceptical. Now I keep an eye on them and like them more than I ought to. Nervous kids looking for peer acknowledgement via facebook and the like are probably much more vulnerable.

 

The provision of phones on entering secondary school in many cases is prompted by children travelling many miles independently to school, and concerns for their safety. But the ones with internet are costly to buy and operate.
Year six already have to have internet safety education at school. I'm not sure that the compulsive nature of social media is covered, though

 

A good start would be to prosecute any business that allows a child under 13 to join a site without proper checks in place. All a ten year old has to do at the moment is to confirm they are old enough and put in a false date of birth. These companies are endangering all our children and they get away with doing it, and get richer doing it.

 

Again, a splendid idea IF it is possible...But how many of the major social media companies are actually based in the UK? If they are based abroad, enforcement is almost impossible.

 

They can be prosecuted, and sites can be blocked. This has been going on for long enough and they continue to come up with half-baked excuses and half-actions that don't work. We cannot allow companies like Facebook to be complicit in the mental destruction of British children. They should be first be given clear warning and 30 days to comply. Then they should be banned; the Government needs to pass any legislation it has to to force ISPs to block feeds to Social Media companies who put profits before children's safety.

 

There’s only so much a teacher can do. I teach Year 6 and I’m constantly having these conversations over and over again with the children and the parents. Mobile phones are banned in school, the lessons are taught (in an already crowded curriculum), we’ve had the police liaison in to talk to them and to remind them that they shouldn’t be on social media at their age, we’ve had parents in to make them aware of the dangers of social media, we’ve sent endless information home, I’ve mentioned it to every single parent at parents’ evening. Etc etc

It’s like talking to a brick wall. They still spend hours unsupervised on social media, still get themselves involved and leave themselves open to the dangers, and then parents come marching into school expecting us to ‘deal’ with so and so who has ‘bullied my child on instabook’ or whatever. Having to sort out arguments that have started on social media outside the school and spilled over into the playground. And these kids are ten years old. I dread to think what it’s like in secondary these days. It’s very frustrating but I think it’s already too late. We’ve been consumed by this social media tidal wave and it’s just going to get worse.

Teaching? English and Maths? Year 6 SATs? Who has time for that these days?

 

They can't be prosecuted easily, perhaps not at all, if they are based abroad.


BTW you sound as if you would be happy in China or another dictatorship where the Government censors the internet. Do you REALLY think that would be a popular policy in the UK?

 

It is not about censoring the internet. It's about finding ways to protect children.

 

I worked in a school where mobiles were banned. No one went looking for them ( just as we didn’t routinely go looking for knives , drugs or cigarettes). If they were turned off and in a bag , there was no problem. If one accidentally went off I’d use my discretion ( and the pupils reaction) whether to confiscate or not. Pupils were actually usually emabarrased by such accidents)

That doesn’t have to be a smart phone - a basic call and text phone will do and be cheaper.

I am certain that more could be done to hold online publishers to account. Newspapers are responsible for what is published in them eg hate messages or incitement. I can’t see that there has been any will to place responsibility on online platforms for their content.

 

I believe the 13 age limit is not a legal requirement in the UK, it is there as a US legal requirement so became a requirement of the platforms.

Rather than blame the technology, we need to be educating people (and not just the children). One thing that needs to be addressed is the disassociation with posting online. That idea that you're anonymous online (you're not, even less so now your ISP is logging details of sites you visit).

Regarding the online resilience, I presume it's to get them to see that just because someone didn't 'like' your post it's not the end of the world. That sometimes it's okay to ignore some comments, that people will have differing views and it's okay not to agree with them. And so on.