Teachers

Welcome to Cyber Friendly Primary Schools  

This tool is designed to support teachers to help students develop positive social and emotional learning skills in the online environment.

What do I need to do?

To use this tool we ask you to reflect on each of the statements below whilst thinking about how you can develop online social and emotional learning skills with your students. Many teachers are already familiar with these skills as part of their current teaching practices or you may not have considered how to apply these skills to an online environment.

The – and + sliders are not designed to score or rank responses, instead they allow teachers to reflect on their current level of knowledge and where they might need additional support and information. When the slider is moved, a collection of useful resources will appear that have been developed to further support your knowledge and ability to help kids interact positively online.

The resources included have been developed by researchers, organisations and
agencies who produce the latest evidence based information about children online.

Alternatively, search for each of these skills in the Knowledge Hub for more information.

  • Self Awareness Online

    Recognising feelings and emotions and moods online.

  • How could I teach my class to label and recognise their feelings, emotions and moods when online?

    • It is important for students to learn how to recognise and label their own emotions when they are in online environments whether it is playing games, using social media or doing schoolwork. These emotions may include happiness, love, fear, excitement, anger, jealousy depending on the situation.
    • Some feelings can influence behaviour and be more difficult to recognise or to deal with than others. Help your class to learn about the way their body can give clues about our feelings, emotions and moods e.g. "what do you think it means when your heart beats faster or when your face becomes hot" (Media Smarts).
    • The Improving Social and Emotional Learning in Primary Schools Guidance Report has strategies and examples for teachers to use for developing general Self Awareness skills.
    • eSafety kids helps start conversations such as 'How do I know if I have been mean to others online?'.

  • How could I teach my class to reflect on how their feelings, emotions and moods may be influenced in positive or negative ways by their online environment?

    • The Digital Citizenship Guide contains information about how students’ feelings may be influenced by positive and negative experiences when online, for example if they experience conflict or cyberbullying.

  • Managing Ourselves Online

    Managing feelings, emotions and moods and setting rules and limits online.

  • How could I teach my class to use strategies to regulate or manage their reactions to emotions when they have positive and negative experiences when online?

    • A quick way to help your class recognise and manage emotions is to help them:
      • Name it: What am I feeling? Identify and understand how the emotion affects you.
      • Explain it: Why am I feeling it? Think about what you are feeling and why you might be feeling this way.
      • Accept it: It is okay to feel this way? It helps to be kind and understanding to ourselves for the way we feel. This helps us accept our emotions and not blame others or judge ourselves for how we feel.
      • Manage it: What can I do to deal with this situation? The goal is always to recognise and accept your feelings are happening without losing control and also finding ways to feel better (Friendly Schools).
    • Media Smarts have resources for teachers related to Online Ethics including the Building Empathy in Children and Teens – Tip Sheet provides some tips for encouraging empathy when students are experiencing strong emotions when online.
    • The EEF Improving Social and Emotional Learning in Primary Schools Guidance Report provides strategies and techniques to manage their emotions and examples that could be used for generally developing Self Management skills.
    • The Raising Children Network have information and strategies related to social and emotional changes in students aged 9-15 years.

  • How could I teach my class to understand how the time they spend online can affect their physical health, relationships, wellbeing, and school work?

    • The "Screen time and wellbeing" infograph has research findings about the pros and cons of screen time and how it can affect social and emotional wellbeing.
    • The eSafety Commissioner has information about achieving a healthy balance in their online and offline activities.
    • eSafety’s #Game On resource explores the actions of a group of lower secondary students who find themselves in situations that catch them off-guard and show them the consequences of making poor decisions online. It explores how the use of devices can affect physical health, relationships, wellbeing, and schoolwork.

  • Decision Making Online

    Making responsible choices and seeking help online.

  • How could I teach my class to examine the benefits and risks associated with being online e.g. (using games, apps, websites)?

  • How could I teach my class how to get help for themselves or others if things go wrong when they are online?

    • The eSafety Commissioners’ Online Safety Guide for parents and carers describes the benefits and risks of being online and how to get help if something goes wrong.
    • The eSafety Guide has information about games, apps and social media including how to report inappropriate content.
    • Media Smarts have resources for teachers related to Online Hate.

  • Relationship Skills Online

    Communicating and interacting respectfully with others online.

  • How could I teach my class how to communicate in a kind and respectful way when they are online?

    • Good habits start young by the eSafety Commissioner provides advice and strategies for parents to encourage respectful communication when they are online.

  • How could I teach my class about using conflict resolution strategies if they experience conflicts when they are online?

    • Media Smarts have a parents Digital Citizenship Guide to help parents chat to their children about steps they can follow if they are in conflict with someone when they are online.

  • How could I teach my class about how they can demonstrate “Cyber leadership” through their positive and safer behaviour online?

  • Staff Response to Incidents

  • How could I respond when students in my class tell me about incidents which have occurred online?

    • Review your schools' behaviour policies and procedures
    • The Co-LATE model is helpful when talking to students about personal issues, including relationship difficulties and cyber bullying behaviour. The acronym Co-LATE guides the user to consider the following five actions during a conversation with students experiencing some difficulties:
      • Co nfidentiality: be clear with students about when you may need to talk to other adults about the content of their conversation (for example, duty of disclosure)
      • L isten: Active listening shows the students you are interested in what they have to say and enables you to confirm you have understood the details of the conversation accurately.  Ask open-ended questions eg: "tell me more about what happened next…"
      • A cknowledge their concerns: in the form of paraphrasing students’ concerns and their reaction to the situation, for example - "that sounds pretty tough".
      • T alk about the options:  This step is likely to be most effective when you encourage and help students to identify solutions to their own concerns. Only offer your own suggestions if the students agree they need help. Responses suggested by and endorsed by students will likely be put into action faster. When identifying responses with students, it is important to also discuss the positive and negative consequences of each to enable students to make an informed decision about how to proceed with the situation.
      • E nd with encouragement: A summary of what was discussed can help students make a decision about how to proceed with their situation and provides an opportunity for you to give encouragement to the student. At this point it may also be helpful to establish a time to have a follow-up meeting with the student, to discuss the effectiveness of implementing their strategy.
        (Friendly Schools, Evidence for Practice)

  • Professional Practice

  • How could I incorporate digital social and emotional learning skills in all areas of my classroom practice?

    • AITSL provides a range of resources to help reflect on your teaching and improve your practice, e.g. after completing the SWOT Analysis you can connect two of the categories to determine actions you may wish to take. For example, matching strengths to opportunities shows you where you may wish to take action. Matching weaknesses to threats highlights areas you may wish to work on*.
    • Media Smarts have developed the “Classroom Guide: Integrating digital literacy into your classroom practice” which helps teachers include digital literacy in their classroom practice.
    • The eSafety Commissioner has national professional learning webinars for teachers which are aligned to Professional Standards and the Australian Curriculum and a pre-service teacher training program for those teaching staff who are about to enter the workforce.
    • eSafety's latest blogposts has up-to-date online safety issues and advice.
    • Media Smarts' Digital Literacy 101 is a helpful Canadian resource that can be used to help teachers implement digital literacy in their classrooms. It can also help to develop digital literacy lessons and activities tailored to meet students' needs.
    • ACARA has published an Online Safety Curriculum Connection designed to guide teachers to identify content in the Australian Curriculum that supports the teaching and learning of online safety. The resource also connects a range of interdisciplinary resources that have been developed to support online safety education.
    • AITSL’s Australian Professional Standards for Teachers outlines what teachers are expected to know, understand and do to succeed in their work. Engaging with these resources and tools regularly can also assist staff members to feel prepared and motivated to implement whole-school initiatives for online SEL.

    *Reference: https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/5543-personal-swot-analysis.html

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Additional Resources

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Further information about how parents and school leadership can help children develop positive online social and emotional learning skills can be found by choosing an option below: