SAFEGUARDING

Screens in the early years

Alex Dave, safeguarding education officer at the London Grid for Learning Trust’s (LGfL) DigiSafe team, explains how you can help ensure that children are kept safe when accessing digital devices

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Recent research from Ofcom has highlighted that children are accessing devices and going online for more time than ever before – and starting from a younger age. In its Children and parents: media use and attitudes report 2023, Ofcom found that 87% of three- and four-year-olds go online – an increase from previous years’ data – with 92% of children in this cohort watching videos on streaming sites such as YouTube. When children go online, they are most likely to be using a tablet (75%), but this report suggests that 25% of three- and four-year-olds now own a mobile phone.

With children accessing online devices earlier, it shouldn’t be a surprise that they are now also being exposed to risks from a younger age. These risks include:

  • difficulty regulating their emotions
  • overstimulation
  • being overweight due to increased sedentary periods while online
  • experiencing bullying online
  • accessing inappropriate content
  • taking sexual images

With regards to the latter, a 2023 report from the Internet Watch Foundation found that the biggest increase in concerns of children being coerced into taking sexual imagery of themselves, is within the seven-to 10-year-old group, where there has been a 360% increase of such concerns compared to the previous year’s data.

Children in the early years cannot go online without adults facilitating this. Therefore, it is imperative that if we allow them to access devices in our early years provision, and therefore potentially exposing them to such risks, we take responsibility for understanding this and putting in place measures that protect children while promoting safe, healthy and fun online activity.

We want early years professionals to be informed and proactive about managing and curating children’s first experiences online, online, rather than leaving this up to chance. But we recognise that navigating and understanding all the various apps, games, sites and devices children use, can feel quite overwhelming and intimidating to many adults.

So, LGfL and the Alliance are offering a FREE virtual workshop on Wednesday 28 June at 6.30pm-7.30pm for early years professionals to discuss and learn about the basic principles that will help you to keep children safe when they are using devices at your provision – and beyond.

Find out more about the session and book your free space online at bit.ly/41y8Ast.

Find out more

The National Grid for Learning is a charitable trust that is passionate about saving schools money, keeping children safe, tackling inequality, energising teaching and learning and promoting wellbeing. Its mission is the advancement of education. It does not profit from schools and reinvests any profits it makes into education.

Find out more about their work at national.lgfl.net.