Parents and Carers.

Welcome to the Parents and Carers Area

Welcome to the Parents and Carers Area of Sheiling School’s website, here you will find some useful and important information.

We actively encourage you to let us know if there is anything additional you would like to see in this area. Please let us know your suggestions by contacting us.

 

Useful links and Documents

14/12/20 – Exciting News! New online shop

We are launching an online shop where a range of products featuring our pupils’ artwork is available (the products are not made by the pupils only the designs).

All proceeds that we receive from these sales will go towards buying new equipment for our pupils in the school and care home.

Currently each pupil has at least one piece of artwork featured. You can visit the shop here or by following the shop link in the Parents and Carers menu.

02/12/20 – TikTok – more parental controls

With TikTok surging in popularity, including children deliberately increasing their followers to 1,000 so that they can go live, it’s good to see TikTok making more controls available for parents. The features, which are available via Family Pairing, include the ability to prevent the child searching and preventing strangers from seeing the childs’ post.

02/12/20 – Playstation 5 – Parental Settings

With the new gaming consoles at the top of many wish lists this year this is a timely guide from Andy Robertson (GeekDadGamer) which includes how to set up a parent account and child accounts.

02/12/20 – Games for younger Children

Internet Matters has a new article for parents showing some of the top child-friendly games for children aged 3 and upwards.

02/12/20 – YouTube – a parents decision guide

Common Sense Media have put together a handy little guide called ‘Parents Best Decision Guide to YouTube for Young Kids‘

21/07/20 – Communicating Safely – an article for parents

The link shown is to a short article by Alan Mackenzie, written for parents about their children communicating safely. The article is purposefully short to give clear, concise information and advice to parents. View article

21/07/20 –New resources for parents and young people with additional needs

Supported and part-funded by Internet Matter and Facebook, young people were front and centre in this project and it was those young people who created and tested the resources which have been developed to address individual and bespoke needs of parents/carers and young people. Visit the Connecting Safely Online Hub Here

21/07/20 –

Kooth is a British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) accredited digital mental health support service. It gives children and young people easy access to an online community of peers and a team of experienced counsellors. Access is free of the typical barriers to support.

Kooth can be accessed by young people here: https://www.kooth.com/

17/07/20 – Our Yearbook 2019/20 is ready!

Our Yearbook for 2019-20 is ready! Copies are available at the discounted price of £17 this year (from £20) inc. postage. If people would like to purchase one please contact mail@sheilingschool.org.uk

08/07/20 –

CEOP – new activity packs for parents

CEOP have released their new activity packs for all age ranges, this time focusing on the activity of online gaming. Links to the various packs are:

• 4-5 year olds HERE
• 5-7 year olds HERE
• 8-10 year olds HERE
• 11-13 year olds HERE
• 14+ HERE

There is also a new article and video to help parents and carers understand how in-game chat works, how it might be abused by others and what they can do to help keep their children safe whilst using in-game chat. The link for the article and video is HERE.
New resource for parents – Taming Gaming

Andy Robertson is a family video game journalist and is well known for his clear, pragmatic advice about all things gaming. He has put together a fabulous new website for families, quote “This database is a unique way to find games for children, teenagers and young adults. Every game is presented for parents and carers to understand, to empower informed choice through understanding.” Unquote.

The Taming Gaming website is HERE.
SafeToNet – free online safety app for 1 million parents

SafeToNet have developed a world-leading cyber-safety app which they are giving away, free for life, to 1 million parents and carers that download the app before 1st Aug 2020.

The letter for parents can be downloaded HERE.

08/07/20 –

Guidance for parents and carers of children attending out-of-school settings during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak (gov.uk)

The government has issued guidance for parents about any out-of-school settings they use for their children. This will become particularly important as the summer holidays begin.

The guidance includes a section about choosing a suitable provider and provides some examples of positive signs to look out for when choosing an out-of-school setting for your child.

In addition to covid-19 related issues, the guidance covers safeguarding matters too, including finding out whether staff members and volunteers have relevant child protection training, and relevant checks have been made.

You can find the guidance here

 

04/05/20 – Message from Bristol Sanctuary:

We are the Bristol Sanctuary and we would normally provide a safe place for people to come to for a few hours in the evening if they are in emotional distress. This would be a place where they would be able to talk to a member of staff about how they are feeling and access distraction activities such as puzzles, arts and crafts etc.

At present we are unable to see people face-to-face but are offering telephone support seven nights a week from 4-10pm.

We are letting you know in case you come into contact with any students, teachers or parents who could benefit from having someone to talk to in this difficult time. We offer support to people aged 16+ living in the Bristol and South Gloucestershire areas.

If someone might like to use our service, they can call us on 01179542952 or 07709295661 from 4pm. We will do an initial assessment call (informal) with them and offer a call back at an arranged time.

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30/04/20 – Support for Parents During COVID-19

28/04/20 –

Important for Parents – Nintendo Switch Hack

Nintendo have confirmed a data breach (see HERE) which means that over 160,000 accounts have had their details stolen, some of these accounts have already been used to make illegal purchases. Nintendo have stated they will contact affected users, but I would recommend you send this information out to parents as they will likely trust you more:

1. Log in to your Switch account and change the password, remember to use a good, strong password.
2. Enable 2-factor authentication. This means if somebody tries to user your login details, you will get a code sent to your phone, so you know that somebody is trying to log in.

Go to the HaveIBeenPawned website (HERE) and put in your username/email address to see if any accounts have been hacked.

27/04/20 – *NEW* Bakery Recipes page

23/04/20 –

From Online Safety expert Alan Mackenzie:

 

CEOP Education Packs

CEOP (ThinkUKnow) have released another weekly activity pack for all children and young people:

4-5 – click HERE
5-7 – click HERE
8-10 – click HERE
11-13 – click HERE
14+ – click HERE

Fake news – a lesson for children

Fake news has always been a problem, but it’s getting so much worse during this pandemic. Google has a nice little lesson for younger (primary) children to test their knowledge of fake news and what actions they would take under certain situations. It’s free and only takes about 10 minutes. Click HERE.

There’s also some great information on the BBC Bitesize website for children of all ages. Click HERE.

Chain Games

You may have seen these games, they’re rife on Facebook and other platforms. They ask simple and fun questions such as: the name of your first pet, your favourite holiday destination and other fairly benign questions that you then need to share and pass onto all your friends. But are they harmless? No! Many of these so-called games are created by fraudsters. Research continually shows people using their pet name or other easy-to-remember information as their passwords, and that’s exactly what the criminals are looking for. Don’t take part in these games and if you see your friends sharing, let them know too.

Netflix – Parental Controls

The majority of children use Netflix who have recently added a useful pin-controlled function for parents to lock down profiles. See more information from Netflix HERE (number 3 is the new addition).

20/04/20 –

From Online Safety expert Alan Mackenzie:

We’re aware that organizations are creating a significant amount of advice and guidance for schools and parents regarding online safety, remote learning and live streaming. Some of this is really good, some is questionable. But it’s also creating noise and confusion. The purpose of the short video is to simplify the best advice and then to provide you with some links to the organizations who are providing the best and most up to date advice.

Video and information for parents: click HERE

20/04/20 –

Online Radicalisation Information Sheet

The police have produced a new guidance sheet regarding online radicalisation.

Download HERE

20/04/20 –

Six Top Tips (for parents of primary aged children)

London Grid for Learning have produced a lovely poster reinforcing some basic online safety tips for parents. Download HERE

20/04/20 –

Home Activity Packs (Early Years, Primary and Secondary)

CEOP are releasing weekly online safety activity packs for all years. The second set of packs are now available to download

Download them HERE

Coronavirus and Autism, a parents guide 

NSPCC advice  for parents worried that their child may be struggling with their mental health or has anxiety about coronavirus (COVID-19)

Dealing with conflict at home during self isolation