What content is included in the online training?

The content for both primary and secondary platforms will provide:

• Video and interactive content with information and advice on the online safety issues that young people face today as well as how they can engage their wider peer community.
• The Primary Digital Leaders Programme has been designed with Key Stage 2 students in mind and encompasses the messages taught with our SMART rules – www.childnet.com/young-people/primary.
• The Secondary Digital Leaders Programme has been designed with Key Stage 3 students in mind and covers more complex topics such as; online risks, digital footprint and how to respond to the concerns of younger children.

Find out more on our How it works page.

We recommend that the Digital Leaders spend around an hour a week on their activities to help them maximise the potential impact of the programme within your school. They could meet up at lunch, after school or in form time. Your Digital Leaders should be able to complete their training within 2-3 months and then they have the rest of the year to deliver impactful activities in your school and community and work through Team Achievement modules, so that they can continue to gain points and badges for their school on the online platform.

Your school should allocate a member of staff to oversee this programme and meet regularly with the students. We’ll stay in touch throughout the year to make sure you are happy with how things are progressing.

You can enrol in the programme at any point in the academic year. We then give you up to three months to recruit your Digital Leaders. Your subscription start date begins once you upload your Digital Leader team to the online platform, or after the three month period, whichever is sooner.

We recommend that schools/organisations recruit 8-10 Childnet Digital Leaders, as this is the most effective number for creating a close knit team who can organise a range of activities in school and progress through the programme over the year. We are open and flexible to schools who would like to recruit a larger team of leaders if you feel this would be more suitable to your needs.

Although the training has been developed with Key Stage 2 in mind for the primary platform, and Key Stage 3 for the secondary platform, the programme is not limited to particular year groups and there are training modules to suit all age groups. Your school’s Childnet Digital Leaders team can be from one year group or several.

Presently we don’t have a programme designed specifically for sixth form students, although the secondary programme is still a suitable learning platform for 16 – 19 years olds. The secondary online training modules have been designed with Key Stage 3 in mind, however, the peer to peer learning element of the programme can be adapted and expanded upon to suit the needs of 16+ students. For example, the students attend regular meetings after completing each online module in order to discuss and consolidate their learning with their team. These offline sessions can provide the space for 16+ students to discuss more mature themes of the module topic i.e. online risks.

No. There are two separate platforms for primary and secondary schools and these cannot be combined as the content differs. If your school would like to train both primary and secondary students then this will require two separate subscriptions. Some schools sign up to the secondary platform and then those qualified Digital Leaders will train their peers in lower year groups.

We do not currently have a specific online platform for students with SEND however we are working on making our platform more inclusive. We do have some SEND schools subscribed to the programme who have found that the primary platform works well for their secondary aged pupils. It is completely at your discretion whether you think that the programme can be adapted to suit the needs of your students. Please feel free to get in contact with us to discuss these options further as we would love to hear from SEND schools and work with them to make our programme more inclusive. We can also give you access to the guest log to try out the platform for yourself.

Yes – international schools are able to sign up to the Digital Leaders Programme if they are English speaking and follow the UK curriculum. We have a growing number of International Digital Leader schools, see the Digital Leaders map on the Impact and reach page.

Yes! We would be very happy to talk to you about how this programme can work in a non-school setting. We have plenty of non-schools enrolled including libraries and county councils and would love to see the programme used in many different settings.

Please get in touch with us to talk through how the programme could potentially work in your setting.

Yes – we have a guest login with a couple of example modules so that you can have a taster of the functionality of the online platform. Guest logins are valid for a limited time period only. Please sign up for access to the guest login here.

We take the privacy of all our Digital Leaders very seriously and we only use personal information of staff and students for specific reasons necessary for the platform. Please see our Privacy Policy. When sending consent forms you should follow your school or organisations GDPR compliance rules, we suggest sending hard copies by recorded mail or emailing consent forms using attachments which are password protected

The Childnet Digital Leaders Programme aims to empower children and young people to champion digital citizenship within their schools and to educate their peers, parents and teachers about staying safe online.

By working through the online modules, Digital Leaders will become ‘Qualified’ and then will be able to lead offline activities in their schools or community, acting as role models and harnessing their expertise to increase awareness about the online risks facing other young people today.

The Digital Leaders programme is a great opportunity for students to be involved in online safety education in their school, develop the confidence to help peers with online safety issues and be more conscious of their own digital footprint and actions online. There are many leadership opportunities associated with the programme and lots of Digital Leaders share their knowledge in school by holding assemblies or after school sessions for parents.

The programme also links Digital Leader schools across the UK, giving young people opportunities to attend national events and receive school visits from the Childnet Digital Leaders team.

Childnet are committed to the highest standards of safeguarding of children and young people in all areas, but especially online.

While it is unlikely that issues or a disclosure will be expressed on the platform we want to ensure that any potential safeguarding issues can be recognised and managed quickly with the wellbeing of the child as the driving force behind any action we take.

The online platform is moderated by Childnet, and so to ensure that children are suitably safeguarded we need to be able to take appropriate action if a child ever expresses that they are in danger, at risk of harm or if we are concerned about a child using the Community feature on the platform. Such an issue could present itself at any time. In this event, our first point of contact would likely be the school. However, if an issue were to be brought to our attention and school are unreachable, during school holidays, late at night or at a weekend, and require immediate action, we must ensure that we have the correct contact information to address this issue.

As the platform also allows children to contact a member of the Childnet team directly (through the ‘Contact’ tab) there is always the possibility that a disclosure may be made to us, and this too may require immediate action.

Please do contact us here if you have any further questions.

The programme has quite a high public profile and has been featured on television news and in several newspapers and magazines. Previously, interviews with Digital Leaders have been broadcast by Sky, BBC and Facebook. Parents’/carers’ wish to give their child media consent is optional.  Please be assured that if you don’t agree for us to use media featuring your child, then this does not at all hinder their involvement in the programme. Please also see our Privacy Policy to see more information about media consent.

We recommend that the Digital Leaders spend around an hour a week on their activities to help them maximise the potential impact of the programme. We recommend to schools that their Digital Leaders meet up at lunch, after school or in form time with a designated member of staff. It is up to a school’s staff to decide when will is best for the Digital Leaders to meet, and there is no reason that this should interfere with their other educational commitments. Digital Leaders should be able to complete their training within 2-3 months and then they have the rest of the year to deliver impactful activities in their school and community.

The Community section of the platform allows Digital Leaders to post and respond to questions from within the international Digital Leader community. The Community feature has been created to empower young people to discuss online safety in a safe environment and to positively inspire their peers.

The online platform is moderated by Childnet and if anything is posted on the Community that is inappropriate or not related to the Digital Leaders programme it will be removed and the school contacted.

To ensure that children are safeguarded we will take appropriate action if a child ever expresses on the platform that they are in danger, at risk of harm, or if we are concerned about a child using the Community feature. Such an issue could present itself at any time. In this event, our first point of contact would be the school. However, if an issue were to be brought to our attention late at night or at a weekend and require immediate action, we will contact the parent/ carer.

Please note that if your child is at a primary school, the Community feature on the platform can be activated or deactivated. This is decided by the school.

We take the privacy of all our Digital Leaders very seriously and we only use personal information of students for specific reasons necessary for the platform. Please see our Privacy policy here.

We mandatorily require a signed parental consent form for all children to take part in the Digital Leaders programme.  Parents/carers can choose to sign the media consent form (see FAQ ‘Do I need to give media consent for my child?’). During the programme we do not require parents to be involved in any way as the programme will be facilitated at school by the designated member of staff. We do encourage children to discuss with their parents what they are learning during their training and more generally about online safety. Once students have finished their training they are ready to share their knowledge within their community, and we encourage parents/carers to be open minded to learning from their children about online safety.