Captain Kara and her new SMART Crew

Updated in time for the new academic year, Captain Kara and her new SMART Crew give advice on how to stay SMART online.

The Adventures of Captain Kara, Winston and the SMART Crew are a series of videos created by Childnet to guide children through 5 key e-safety rules.

The videos include a real life SMART Crew of young people, updated in this latest edition, who help the cartoon characters make safe online decisions during their quest.

The Captain Kara cartoons teach young people about staying safe online and cover a wide range of e-safety issues that are relevant to the lives of 7-11 year olds.

With new supporting resources, including a quiz and print-out activities, Childnet’s hugely popular resource is given a refresh for 2016.

The Adventures of Captain Kara film is broken down into 5 sections, each covering a different online safety issue:

Young people are taught about what information they should keep safe and what information is okay to share online. This video explores the issues with telling strangers your real name, email address or home address.

Young people are shown that the people they talk to online are still strangers, and that they should not meet up with them in person. This helps them to understand that people online may not always be telling the truth about themselves.

The videos provide information about what to do if someone you don’t know sends you an image or attachment via email or instant message. It highlights the importance of not accepting these messages as they may contain harmful viruses or upsetting messages.

Critical thinking skills are taught to young people so they can identify what information online is reliable. The main message of this video is that anyone can post online, so you should always check information you see and compare it to other sources or check with an adult.

The most important lesson from the Adventures of Captain Kara is that if ever a young person is concerned or worried about something they have seen online they should tell a parent, teacher or friend. This short film explores the issue of cyberbullying and what children should do.

All of the Captain Kara videos and resources can be viewed for free on the Childnet website.