Safer Internet Day is on the way

Safer Internet Day will be held on Tuesday 11 February 2025, providing an opportunity for early childhood education and care (ECEC) teams to reflect on their role in promoting online safety for children and young people. 

To assist in this reflection, ACECQA has highlighted a recent linkage project titled Young Children in Digital Society, funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC), that brought together leading national organisations and researchers with the intention of supporting educators and services in helping children and their families use digital technologies. As a result, they published a website featuring a series of practices and supporting resources.

Drawing on Early Childhood Australia’s (ECA) Statement on young children and digital technologies (2018), the research leveraged off the 4 key areas of technology used with, by and for children: 

• Relationships
• Health and wellbeing
• Citizenship
• Play and pedagogy

Safer Internet Day may be a good time for educators and services to reflect on their role in supporting play-based learning about the internet and promoting online safety for children and young people. The research found that children improved their online safety knowledge when educators promoted play-based learning about the internet as a network of connected technologies.

The researchers identified five key practices that most supported safe online learning:

• Supervising: Children use internet-connected technologies with filters and passwords applied, always with active adult supervision.
• Modelling: Children and adults participate in online activities together so adults can model safe internet behaviours.
• Knowing: Children and adults know about the people and data they are interacting with using internet-connected technologies.
• Pretending: Children participate in pretend play with, and about, the internet.
• Reading: Children and adults engage in shared reading of books and e-books about the internet and online safety.

For further advice and support, review the Citizenship resources, developed in partnership with:

• Australian Catholic University
• Monash University
• Australian Federal Police (AFP)
• Australian Government: eSafety Commissioner
• Alannah & Madeline Foundation
• Berwick and District Woodworkers Club Inc.
• Pope Road Kindergarten
• Lady Gowrie Tasmania

This information was first shared in ACECQA’s newsletter. Subscribe to the newsletter here.