Online Safety for Primary School Children (Ages 5-12)

Practical online-safety learning for primary-age children, with a parent, carer or teacher guiding younger children through the reading and discussion. Use fictional examples, not real personal details or accounts.

Skills to practise

• Keep personal information private and ask before sharing someone else’s information.
• Recognise a worrying request and find a trusted adult.
• Respond to unkind behaviour without joining in or passing it on.
• Check claims, adverts and changed or AI-made content with adult help.
• Make thoughtful choices about games, apps and digital footprints.
• Build routines that leave room for rest, movement and relationships.

Make the learning useful

Read together, pause at the scenarios and discuss what the child would do. Practise a help-seeking sentence and identify trusted adults privately. No activity requires a child to join a social app, publish work or disclose a real incident.

Adults should adapt the activities to the child’s age and needs and follow the school’s safeguarding procedures for any concern. This course is one learning resource, not a substitute for a school’s safeguarding duties, policies or age-specific teaching plan.