Online Safety: Staying Safe

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Concepts

This study delivers 1 primary concept and 0 secondary concepts.

Primary concept: Online Safety and Digital Citizenship (CO-KS12-C005)

Type: Knowledge | Teaching weight: 1/6

Online safety encompasses the knowledge, skills and behaviours needed to participate in digital environments safely, responsibly and positively. It includes protecting personal information, managing digital identity and reputation, recognising online risks (cyberbullying, inappropriate content, grooming, scams), evaluating online information critically and knowing how to seek help when needed. Digital citizenship extends this to include understanding the rights and responsibilities of online participation, including intellectual property, attribution and the ethics of digital communication. At KS1 and KS2, online safety is embedded throughout the computing curriculum.

Teaching guidance: Integrate online safety into all digital activities rather than treating it as a standalone topic. Use age-appropriate scenarios to discuss common online risks. Teach pupils to recognise personal information and understand why it should be kept private. Discuss the permanence of online information and the concept of a digital footprint. Explore how to evaluate whether an online source is trustworthy. Ensure pupils know how to report concerns to a trusted adult or to reporting services. Use PSHE links to connect online safety to broader themes of relationships, identity and wellbeing. Key vocabulary: online safety, personal information, privacy, digital footprint, cyberbullying, password, phishing, spam, screenshot, report, block, trusted adult, content, contact, conduct Common misconceptions: Pupils may think that anonymous online behaviour has no consequences; discussing the traceability of online actions corrects this. Pupils may not realise that information shared with one person online can be shared much more widely; discussing how data spreads makes the risk tangible. The idea that everything on the internet is true is common and requires deliberate work to challenge; evaluating sources, checking dates and looking for corroboration are skills to teach explicitly.

Differentiation

Model response (Entry): I should not reply or give them my information. I should tell a parent or teacher straight away. Personal information like my name, address and school should be kept private online.

Model response (Developing): I should check who wrote it — is it a reliable source like the NHS or a scientist? I should look for the same information on other trusted websites. If only one website says it, it might not be true. I should think about whether the website is trying to sell me chocolate, which would make it biased.

Model response (Expected): A digital footprint is the trail of information you leave behind when you use the internet — posts, comments, photos, searches, likes. Once something is online, it can be very difficult to remove completely. Other people can copy, share or screenshot it. Future employers or universities might see it. I should think: would I be happy for my teacher, my parents or a stranger to see this? If not, I shouldn't post it.

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Thinking lens: Cause and Effect (primary)

Key question: What caused this to happen, and how do we know? Why this lens fits: Online safety education is built on helping pupils understand the consequences of sharing personal information or behaving unkindly online — reasoning about cause and effect (what happens if I share this?) is the central cognitive demand. Question stems for KS1:

What made that happen?

What will happen if...?

Why did it change?

Can you finish: it happened because...?

Secondary lens: Perspective and Interpretation — Digital citizenship requires pupils to consider how their online actions are experienced by others, developing the perspective-taking that underpins responsible behaviour in digital environments.

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Session structure: Discussion and Debate

Discussion and Debate

A structured sequence for exploring contested issues or multiple perspectives. Begins with a stimulus that raises a question or dilemma, builds knowledge through research, develops arguments through structured discussion techniques, captures thinking in writing, and reflects on how views may have changed.

stimulus → research → structured_discussion → writing → reflection Assessment: Balanced written argument or persuasive piece demonstrating understanding of multiple perspectives, supported by evidence, with a reasoned personal conclusion.

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Computing focus

Computational concepts: digital literacy Abstraction level: Physical Themes: online safety, digital citizenship

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Why this study matters

Online safety at KS1 focuses on three age-appropriate concepts: personal information (what it is and why we keep it private), trusted adults (who to tell if something online makes you uncomfortable), and kind behaviour (being respectful online just as offline). These are non-negotiable foundational concepts that must be taught before any internet-connected activity.

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Pitfalls to avoid

Teaching as a one-off lesson then forgetting -- online safety must be reinforced in every lesson that uses the internet

Scaring children about the internet -- balance safety messages with positive uses

Not involving parents -- send home a simple guide about online safety conversations

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Computational thinking skills (KS1)

These disciplinary skills should be woven through teaching, not taught in isolation:

Algorithm design (KS3) — Design, implement and analyse algorithms for non-trivial computational problems including sorting and searching; understand that multiple algorithms can solve the same problem with different efficiency characteristics; use logical reasoning and formal comparison techniques to assess the relative utility of alternative algorithms; implement algorithms in at least two programming languages, at least one text-based.

Pattern recognition (KS2) — Identify patterns and regularities in data sets and program behaviours; use pattern recognition to select appropriate control structures (repetition for repeated actions, selection for conditional branching); generalise from specific examples to produce reusable solutions; recognise when an existing algorithm or program component can be reused to solve a new problem.

Abstraction (KS1) — Focus on the most important features of a problem or task while ignoring unnecessary detail; represent real-world actions as simple step-by-step instructions that capture the essential logic without irrelevant specifics.

Decomposition (KS2) — Decompose a complex programming problem or digital project into distinct, manageable sub-problems that can be developed and tested independently; plan program structure using top-down design before coding; use procedures and functions as the coded expression of decomposed sub-problems.

Decomposition (KS1) — Break a familiar task or problem into a sequence of smaller, ordered steps; understand that a complex instruction can be split into simpler sub-instructions that together achieve the same goal; apply this thinking when giving instructions to a programmable toy or creating a simple program.

Abstraction (KS3) — Design and evaluate computational abstractions that model the state and behaviour of real-world problems and physical systems; select appropriate levels of abstraction for a given problem context; use abstract data types, classes and interfaces to hide implementation detail; understand the layered abstractions present in computing systems from hardware to application.

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Vocabulary word mat

Prior knowledge (retrieval plan)

Pupils should already know the following from earlier units:

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Scaffolding and inclusion (Y1)

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Knowledge organiser

Key terms:

personal information

private

password

trusted adult

safe

respectful

internet

online

Core facts (expected standard):

Online Safety and Digital Citizenship: Explaining how to manage their digital footprint, understanding how personal data is collected and used online, and acting as a responsible digital citizen.

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Graph context

Node type: ComputingTopicSuggestion | Study ID: TS-CO-KS1-005 Concept IDs:

CO-KS12-C005: Online Safety and Digital Citizenship (primary)

Cypher query:

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Generated from the UK Curriculum Knowledge Graph — zero LLM generation.