Safer Internet Day 2023

What is Safer Internet Day?

On Tuesday 7th February we joined schools and youth settings across the UK in celebrating Safer Internet Day 2023.  Safer Internet Day is celebrated globally in February each year to promote the safe and positive use of digital technology for children and young people, and to inspire a national conversation about using technology responsibly, respectfully, critically, and creatively.

Using the internet safely and positively is a key message that we promote in school, and celebrating Safer Internet Day is a great opportunity for us to re-emphasise the online safety messages we deliver throughout the year.

Want to talk about it?  Making space for conversations about life online

Each year in the UK, Safer Internet Day explores a new issue or theme which is impacting the lives of young people in the UK.  2023 was the 20th year the day has been celebrated globally. To mark this, Safer Inter Day celebrated by putting children and young people’s voices at the heart of the day and encouraging them to shape the online safety support that they receive. That is why they asked parents, carers, teachers, government, policymakers, and the wider online safety industry to take time to listen to children and young people and make positive change together.

• What issues really matter to children and young people?

• What changes do they want to see?

• And how can we all work together to advocate for them moving forward?

Whether you had 5 minutes, a few hours, a whole day or even a week, Safer Internet Day asked everyone to make time for these conversations and to remember you don’t have to do it alone.

With your help, Safer Internet Day 2023 can be a springboard for conversations that shape how we talk about and respond to online issues, not just for one day, but throughout the whole year. That’s why this Safer Internet Day's theme was:

Want to talk about it?  Making space for conversations about life online

'I Want to Talk About it'

One of the activities we will did in school was participating in the 'I Want to Talk About it' campaign.  

Safer Internet Day 2023 was all about youth voice and the things that children and young people want social media and gaming companies, government, parents, carers, and teachers to know about their lives online.

We used the Safer Internet Day 'I Want to Talk About it' template to help us consider what we want others to do to support us online, and to explore how we can all work together to create a better internet by challenging ourselves, those around us, and the apps we interact with online. This could be:

• Things young people want adults to know about their life online.

• What issues really matter to them online.

• Changes children and young people want to see online and how we can work together to make these happen.

• Questions they wish the adults supporting them would ask about their lives online.

If you would like to take part yourself, you can download the template here.