E2BN Blog

Pokémon Go the new mobile game that lets players catch Pokémon as they roam the streets has become a bit of a phenomenon. It’s a game that uses augmented reality and GPS software to display virtual creatures in the real world so that players can find and capture said creatures.

Many of your pupils will already be playing Pokémon Go – it’s a great way to get people, young and old, out of the house and moving around. Within a month of its launch (July 2016) Nintendo’s share price had doubled (despite not owning or distributing the game). High-level accounts are being bought and sold for hundreds of pounds; there are already 9.5 million daily players and apparently, there are claims that, amongst adults, it is proving more popular than online pornography!

In September 2015 from the National Police Chief Council's lead on children and young people said, “if a school chooses to take an incident to the police, then officers must record the crime." So what does this mean for schools when faced with dealing with a sexting incident? The UK Safer Internet Centre has produced two infographics on sexting to help schools understand what it is and to decide if and when they should involve the police.

Information for Teaching Staff

YouTube for Schools (YTFS) offered educational settings a clever way to access the valuable video that is available on YouTube without exposing students to content that was inappropriate. An administrator signed up for a YouTube for Schools account/channel and added YouTube videos that teachers wanted students to be able to access in school to the account. E2BN Protex utilised YTFS on all student profiles by adding educational content to the E2BN YTFS account/channel and redirecting YouTube request to YTFS.

On 1st July Google is will cease the YTFS service. All schools need to be aware that from 1st July the type of content that students might be able to access on YouTube will change. Students may be able to access content that would previously have been inaccessible.

Case study: Colin Marks - Orton Wistow School, Peterborough

I signed the school up to eCadets at the E2BN e-safety conference held in Peterborough this year. I met Henry, who created the scheme, and after listening to him explain how it works and the successes he had seen in other schools I felt it was the next step for us.

Once I had investigated the website and looked through the resources, including videos, on how to get started I told all the children about eCadets in assembly and started the recruitment process. All children who wanted to be an eCadet (lots!) completed a short application form just saying why they wanted to be an eCadet and what strengths they could bring to the role.

I then chose 20 from across Years 2-6 to design an e-safety poster and I spoke to them in groups. I then selected 2 children from each year group to become the first eCadets team. This was announced in an assembly where they received their badge and I created a display in a central area of the school which included their photos and some of their posters.