I am writing to parents today as it has been brought to my attention that there has been some online bullying whilst the Y5/6 have been off school and isolating.  This is really upsetting for me as I know that the children (and families) are already finding things difficult and that we should all be doing our best to support and care for each other.

The bullying has been happening over Roblox and WhatsApp.  As parents I urge you to make sure that your child is only accessing these programmes (and programmes like them)  if you have checked they are appropriate and that they are only accessing them in a communal space so that you can support and check what they are seeing/saying.

Last week we had an incident (that I hoped was isolated) with a programme called Among Us.  The children were in a chat room with someone who they thought was their friend and the language and insults that were directed to them were horrific and School advised police contact.  The parents were devastated when they found out what their children were exposed to.

These games are a brilliant way of staying in touch with friends (especially in the current situation) but they can be very dangerous if not monitored.  I have put some parent guides on our webpage (Internet Safety/Parents Carer Information) for the two games that I am aware of.  There are also links to other sites on our website and the NOS site has many support guides for parents which I share every Wednesday on our Facebook page.   Yesterday I also shared an online training event for parents on Facebook:

Cumbria’s It’s Not OK campaign to promote online safety advice for parents and carers with a special event (yourcumbria.org)

Unfortunately, it is inevitable at some point that the children will see something inappropriate, what is important, is how they deal with this.  The children know exactly what they should do if they see something inappropriate, and clearly as demonstrated by the two incidents (that we know of) they are not applying this.  I know I can rely on your support and that if you saw what the children had been exposed to you would be devastated.

Please talk to your child and let them know you are there to help them.  Please regularly check their devices and if anyone needs any further support please let me know.

If there are any more incidents of bullying, we will be following the School’s Behaviour Policy (which includes online bullying outside of School) and it will be dealt with severely.   We need our children to be kind to one another and they might just need a reminder of this.

I thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Mrs Rose