Childnet Digital Leaders from the North come together for the first ever regional event!

Last week the Childnet Digital Leaders from Acklam Grange School, Berwick Hills Primary School, Bolton Muslim Girls’ School, Christ Church CV (VC) Primary School, Hasland Junior School and Titus Salt School came together for our first ever Digital Leaders Regional Event! At this event they shared their knowledge, best practice and ideas for how they can implement online safety education in their schools.

The Childnet Digital Leaders Programme, which is run as part of Childnet’s work in the UK Safer Internet Centre, is a youth leadership training programme empowering young people to educate their peers about online safety.

We are the only online safety charity in the UK delivering an online peer to peer programme that directly helps schools to embed online safety. Once on board, groups of Digital Leaders complete training through an engaging, informative and fun online platform, working through e-learning modules to equip them with the skills to become peer mentors in their schools, and help keep others safe online. When they are qualified, Digital Leaders are encouraged to advocate for online safety in their schools and communities by running offline and online activities, for which they will be awarded additional team achievement badges and points.

At the regional event 60 qualified Digital Leaders from 6 schools came together to discuss their work on the programme, and to meet others who are doing the same things as them as part of the programme.

The young people took part in activities throughout the day, including quizzes, moral compass activities and workshops on talking to different audiences about key topics such as cyberbullying.

There was then the first ever ‘star awards’ ceremony where young people, who had been nominated by their teachers, were given awards for the great things they had achieved as Digital Leaders.

The event was MC’d by Conor, a Digital Leader from Acklam Grange School, who did a great job of introducing the event and making sure the young people were excited for what was about to come.

The event was a great chance for the Digital Leaders to share their thoughts and ideas about the programme, whilst also discussing the challenges and great successes they’ve faced as Digital Leaders.

The young people from Titus Salt and Berwick Hills Primary School created stall displays that showcased what they had been up to over the last year, including great examples of presentations, resources and events that they had run.

To find out more about the programme visit www.digital-leaders.childnet.com

We will be hosting more Digital Leaders events throughout the year, so team leaders should keep an eye on their inboxes over the coming months for more details!