Online Safety for Parents

Starting the conversation

Talking regularly with your child is the greatest tool to help keep them safe online. Talking regularly and making it part of daily conversation, like you would about their day at school, will help your child feel relaxed. It also means when they do have any worries, they’re more likely to come and speak to you.

But it can also be easy to become overwhelmed with the different technology, the language that children use, the huge number of games and apps which are available and the potential risks.

We have put together a page specifically to support children to stay safe online, so one way to start this conversation would be to look at the tips and advice together:

Online Safety for Kids (Pupils menu tab)

The Lincewood Parent Pact - Guidelines for introducing technology to children responsibly

Parents and Carers are in an increasingly challenging position around their children’s use of technology. In 2025 we sent our parents a short survey to gauge wider opinion on children owning smartphones. The results of this survey can be seen here: Smartphone Survey Results Letter

As a result of this, we created a set of guidelines on how you can introduce technology to your children responsibly, with key steps to take in order to protect them from potentially harmful online content, and advice on how to transition them onto the use of a smartphone safely.

We encourage all parents to sign our Parent Pact to help ensure we are all working towards the same goal, to help limit peer pressure at an earlier age, to show a communal commitment to our guidelines.

Click here to sign our Parent Pact

Parental Controls on New Devices

Please refer to a recent letter we sent out to all parents/carers around online safety and how to ensure you are using the most effective parental controls on your child's devices:

Letter - Parental Controls / Online Safety Advice for Parents 2024-25

Essex Police have also launched their 'Sort Your Settings' campaign to provides parents and carers advice on making online devices safer for children:

Essex Police - SORT YOUR SETTINGS

parental controls on new devices.pdf

For more in depth step-by-step parental control guides, click the link below and search for your specific device:

Parental Control Guides for online Devices and Broadband

#BeChallengeAware

We recently did a workshop for parents in aid of the BeChallengeAware campaign, which aims to help parents to become more aware of how to keep their children safe from dangerous online challenges. We also shared some key messages around how to keep your child safe when using devices at home. See the slides below to look through the key messages from the workshop:

Google Family Link

We know many of our pupils enjoy using various digital devices for different purposes, however it is increasingly challenging for parents to monitor what children are doing and to keep them safe. That is why we recommend that parents take advantage of one of the various applications available to help you monitor your child’s use of their digital devices, and take a leading role in keeping them safe online. One specifically effective way of doing this is to use ‘Google Family Link.’

This app allows parents to:

set screen time limits for your child's device;
control what apps your child downloads;
provide content filtering options;
lock your child’s device remotely at any time;
track the location of your child’s device.

Click here for more information on the App, and guidance for how to set it up on your devices.

Further advice and support

It may feel daunting to talk about staying safe online – especially when your children are using the internet differently to you. We have put together a sequence of links and resources for advice and support to help:

Online Safety Parent Guides (Simple and Concise from Safetynet)

NSPCC dedicated online safety advice and resources

LGFL 'ParentSafe' resource hub

Setting up Parental Controls at home

Online Safety and remote learning - 6 top tips