Category

Students

E-Safety Information – Streamers

19th March 2025L Forster

You may already know that livestreaming plays a major role in children’s entertainment, with a wide range of personalities influencing young viewers in both positive and negative ways. While watching streamers can be fun, it also comes with significant risks, including misinformation, financial harms, and inappropriate content.

Popular streaming platform Twitch has over 2.5 million viewers at any given time, which is why it’s more important than ever to stay informed. This week’s guide , also available as a podcast , explores the potential dangers of livestreaming and offers essential insights to help you protect the children in your care.

Live Streaming is now a major part of children’s entertainment, evolving from gamers sharing screens into a booming industry with diverse personalities. While watching streamers can be entertaining, it comes with no small number of risks for children, such as misinformation, negative influences, and inappropriate content. With over 2.5 million viewers on Twitch – the current most popular streaming platform – at any one time, this guide highlights the potential dangers associated with watching livestreams and the importance of staying informed.

We’ve created this free guide – also available in podcast format – to provide parents and educators everything they need to know about streamers and how to keep children protected.

https://nationalcollege.com/

Parents’ Evening Booking – 10th and 17th March

21st February 2025L Forster

To book an appointment for your child, click on the name of their teacher – for years 4, 5 and 6 please select the teacher your child has on a morning for literacy and numeracy. At the bottom of the window, click ‘Jump to the next available date‘ and choose either the 10th or 17th of March and select the available time you would like to see the teacher and fill in the fields displayed.

Please make sure that your device it set to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) to avoid confusion over timings of appointment.

The school are unable to book appointments. Please only contact the school to cancel appointments that are made by mistake or if you are unable to attend.

Visual references of steps:

Links to booking system:

Nursery
Miss Hamilton	Miss Smith

Reception
Mrs Moore	Miss Patterson	Mrs Wilkinson
Year 1
Mrs Twigg	Mrs Beattie	Miss Mullea
Year 2
Mrs Adams	Mrs Jones	Mrs Langley
Year 3
Miss Maffin	Mrs Hawkins	Mrs Pottinger/Mrs Whitfield
Year 4
Mrs Clark	Mrs Wright	Mrs Davis	Mr Forster
Year 5
Mrs Trotter	Miss Errington	Miss Booth	Mr Steadman
Year 6
Mrs Fawkes	Mr Dawson	Mr Thompson	Mrs Allen

Parents’ Evening Booking – 11th and 25th November

25th October 2024L Forster

To book an appointment for your child, click on the name of their teacher. At the bottom of the window, click ‘Jump to the next available date‘ and choose either the 11th or 25th of November and select the available time you would like to see the teacher and fill in the fields displayed.

The school are unable to book appointments. Please only contact the school to cancel appointments that are made by mistake or if you are unable to attend.

Visual references of steps:

Links to booking system:

Nursery
Miss Hamilton	Miss Smith

Reception
Mrs Moore	Miss Patterson	Mrs Wilkinson
Year 1
Mrs Twigg	Mrs Beattie	Miss Mullea
Year 2
Mrs Adams	Mrs Jones	Mrs Langley
Year 3
Miss Maffin	Mrs Hawkins	Mrs Powell
Year 4
Mrs Clark	Mrs Wright	Mrs Davis
Year 5
Mrs Trotter	Miss Errington	Miss Booth	Mr Steadman
Year 6
Mrs Fawkes	Mr Dawson	Mr Thompson

E-Safety Information – Clickbait

27th March 2024L Forster

Around one in five headlines online are clickbait. That’s an estimate from experts at Stanford University, who conducted a study into this phenomenon which has gradually extended its reach to almost every corner of the internet – powered by a strategy of snagging users’ attention by any means necessary rather than a legitimate desire to inform or enlighten.

As that statistic indicates, this manipulative marketing strategy is difficult to avoid online. There’s still plenty that can be done though to limit its influence – especially in relation to young people, who are often more susceptible to sensationalist headlines. Today’s #WakeUpWednesday guide details the potential hazards around clickbait and has expert tips for avoiding them.

Cultural and technological changes have made the experiences of today’s children vastly different to our own childhoods; it can be challenging to engage youngsters in open, honest conversation – especially about more sensitive topics. This, combined with many children’s instinct to avoid “rocking the boat”, can make it difficult to stay up to date with the goings on in their lives.

However, it’s hugely important that trusted adults still offer an empathetic ear and feel able to encourage young people to open up about their day-to-day activities. This #WakeUpWednesday guide provides ten top tips for promoting open conversations with children – helping to make sure there’s someone they know they can turn to in times of need.

E-Safety Information – Developing Healthy Sleeping Pattern

13th March 2024L Forster

Dreaming of a decent night’s sleep? Many of us are – and it’s a particularly pervasive problem for young people. Concerningly, research has suggested that around 70% of teens get less than the recommended 8–10 hours’ sleep per night. The effects of poor-quality sleep on a developing mind, of course, can be harmful over a prolonged period.

Although a significant portion of under-18s struggle for shut eye, there is still plenty we can do to support them in getting the beneficial rest they need during those formative years. Compiled in conjunction with our friends at award-winning mental health charity Minds Ahead, this week’s #WakeUpWednesday guide has tips on helping children to develop healthy sleeping habits.

For children and young people, low-quality sleep can become a serious issue. It has been theorised that poor sleep can have a significant impact on children’s brain development, affecting them for the rest of their lives. A healthy – and consistent – sleeping pattern, therefore, is incredibly important for children and young people’s wellbeing.

With the stresses and distractions that can present themselves to youngsters, it can be tricky to ensure they’re in the best mindset to wind down in the evenings for the rejuvenating rest that they need. The right approach, however, can give them a better chance of cultivating a healthy sleeping pattern. Our guide has some practical tips on helping them to achieve exactly that.

https://nationalcollege.com/

E-Safety Information – Monkey

7th February 2024L Forster

Online video calling with random strangers. It’s hardly a new internet phenomenon – but the recent demise of Omegle has prompted the creation of several similar platforms bidding to fill the vacuum. One such contender is Monkey – a service that randomly connects its users for video calls, using their mobile numbers and Snapchat account details

Monkey has surged in popularity since Omegle’s shutdown in November 2023: visits to the site more than doubled within a month and have been climbing steadily ever since. Regrettably, it also seems that Monkey suffers from many of the same pitfalls as its notorious predecessor – our #WakeUpWednesday guide highlights these possible risks to young people in more detail.

With Omegle finally shutting down in late 2023, the top spot among video chat services is up for grabs – and Monkey has its eyes set on the crown. Randomly matching its users for 15-second conversations, the platform’s developers claim to have created a dynamic online space for people to make new connections and, potentially, even some new friends.

Despite these innocuous-sounding intentions, however, Monkey has been criticised for moderation which may not be comprehensive enough to defend against the obvious dangers that unregulated, random video calls pose to the younger element of the site’s userbase. Our #WakeUpWednesday guide tells trusted adults what they need to know about Monkey.

Same by different

15th January 2024L Forster

The children in year 2 had their first lessons using the Bee-Bots (robots that can be programmed using simple directional instructions). They were tasked with writing algorithms using the instructions: forwards, forwards, left and right.

They kept a record of the end position of the Bee-Bot and noticed that even though they gave it different instructions, it did end on the same few spots of the map.

Ian from Venture Stream

30th November 2023L Forster

To link with our website creation unit, Ian Ferguson, a SEO from Venture Stream, came into to teach the children in year 6 about why and how websites are made in the real world.

He explained the different roles of website creation and how to increase traffic to their websites – including use of social media, paid advertisements and email marketing. He had the children plan different ways in which they could promote their website and get more people to visit it.

To end he demonstrated the use of A.I. (artificial intelligence) to help create content from text to images. The children were taught to use A.I. to inspire writing and not just copy it. They took several ideas from the children to make a brand new image using A.I.

E-Safety Information – Among Us

4th October 2023L Forster

Among Us: fairly safe, or pretty sus? This scenario of spaceship crew members cooperating to complete tasks and uncover murderous alien imposters has garnered a sizeable and committed following with younger gamers

Though Among Us is presented in a (mainly) sanitised visual style, any children’s game which essentially foregrounds the concepts of deceit, betrayal and killing is always likely to cause some concerns. This week’s #WakeUpWednesday guide gets among it with Among Us.

Created in 2018 by a small indie studio that (at the time) had only four employees, Among Us has become one of the gaming world’s biggest breakout hits of recent years. In 2020, for example, it was the world’s most-downloaded mobile game. Its simplicity helped Among Us to resonate with younger players in particular: the game’s second largest audience slice is the 13–18 age bracket.

While the 7+ age rating, emphasis on teamwork and cartoonish, colourful graphics all suit a young fan-base, however, the game does carry more serious risks than betrayal by a team-mate or an untimely on-screen demise – with in-game purchases and possible contact from strangers on our #WakeUpWednesday guide’s list of hazards that trusted adults should bear in mind.

https://nationalcollege.com/

Benefits of IT

2nd October 2023L Forster

The children in Year 2 have been looking at IT (Information Technology – computers or things that work with computers) in our everyday lives.

Scanner finding the items and telling the item finder.
Item finder searching for the prices of each item and adding them together to make the receipt.

This week they were looking at barcode readers in supermarkets. In a role-playing activity, one child took items with barcodes to a table with 2 people on it – who took the role of a scanner and till. The scanner had to find the correct item to the bar code, and then tell the item finder which items there were scanning. The item finder had to then find the price of each item and add them to make a receipt.