Primary Technology Ltd

Supporting Schools During Coronavirus (COVID-19) – Free Blogging Trial

In light of the impact of COVID-19 with school closures and disruption to learning, we want to do our bit to help and will be granting free access to our school blogging platform – PrimaryBlogger, for any affected schools, that don’t currently have blogs with us, until at least the end of June.

Blogs can help schools during this time in a variety of different ways, including:

• Communicating with parents and pupils to set work and tasks
• Allow open communication between school and home in the form of comments
• Reassure parents they’re not alone and allow them to communicate easily with class teachers if they need to
• Allow pupils and parents to show what they’ve been doing at home
• Give students something new and exciting to engage in
• Continue relationships with other schools you may already work with through the use of blogging and commenting
• Further learning on the subject of eSafety

If you would like to start using PrimaryBlogger, please complete our usual sign-up form here. Please note you will not be invoiced until at least July, and only if you confirm you would like to keep your blog(s) and start a paid subscription.

We hope we can help schools and their parents/pupils via our small part of offering another method of communication and learning during this tough time. Please spread the word so we can reach relevant schools.

After the free period, we will contact any school that has created a blog during this time to ask if you would like to continue you with your blog(s) and start a paid subscription, yearly pricing can be seen here. If you no longer wish to continue with the blog(s); the blog will be removed and the content will no longer be accessible. This offer is limited to six blogs per school and new customers only.

Keeping children safe online is a key priority for schools.  Just like Insafe, the organisers of Safer Internet Day (SID), Primary Technology and Edusite take these issues very seriously. SID takes place this year on the 10^th of February and the primary focus of SID is to promote safer and more responsible use of online technologies such as laptops, tablets and smartphones amongst children and young people across the world. SID has now been in action for 11 years and each year Insafe aims to be at the forefront of emerging online issues, choosing a topic reflecting current concerns. For SID 2015 the theme is “Let’s create a better internet together”.

 

Over the years SID has had many achievements including in 2007, an agreement from mobile operators to safeguard children using mobile phones, in 2010 a SID quiz taking place with more than 19,000 people taking part and in 2012, over 1,500 schools registering to receive the first kit of materials available for schools to celebrate Safer Internet Day. The kit included lesson plans, educational games and much more!

 

It’s important to all of us that when children are online they are protected and have a good understanding of the risks of being online and how to report things they may come across. The internet is a valuable learning resource and is great for developing communication skills so need children to learn how to get the most out of the online environment in the safest way possible. We understand that teachers and parents cannot always be around to watch over children whilst they are online, so it makes sense for schools to promote SID and eSafety by using resources such as Click CEOP when issues arise.

 

Edusite has links to some useful websites as well as a handy eSafety resource printout to help you teach children about the issues they may face online. Issues such as what sort of websites should be blocked and why, where do you go if you have a concern about a website, why you shouldn’t share personal information online and what cyberbullying is, to name a few.

 

When our Edusite team create school websites and blogs they use online tools to protect children from viewing or publishing inappropriate content. The Content Management System (CMS) Edusite use allows comments to be moderated and also allows videos from YouTube or Vimeo to be embedded directly into your school website pages. These two measures are the very basic parts of Edusite that prevent pupils from making or receiving inappropriate content and there is less need to visit external websites where you can’t control the content they see.

 

To find out more about Safer Internet day please visit the UK Safer Internet Centre Website.

Most parents observe that their children know more about technology than they do.  Due to the Internet and online technologies playing an important part in life for children, this is often the case.  Whilst this provides great opportunities for learning, communicating and creating using web technologies, care must be taken to ensure children stay safe online and follow e-safety guidelines.

Safe Websites For Pupils

Primary Technology is committed to helping to provide a safe and protected online experience for your school and your pupils. We provide a selection of free websites that allow EYFS and Key Stage 1 – 2 pupils to use the internet safely.

Primaryschoolict.com is a safe search engine powered by Google

Primarygamesarena.com provides online games appropriate for EYFS and Year 1 – 6

E-safety Audit

We recognize that a large amount of online safety is based around guidance that parents, carers and schools provide.  If you would like a free E-Safety audit, to help you become a beacon in promoting eSafety, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We’ll be happen to come to your school and look at your current e-safety practices and guide you towards filling in the gaps to ensure that your pupils are well equipped for using online resources.

More Details

For more information, please see the E-Safety section of our website