Steve Macabee (00:01.462)
Right then, welcome back once again to the P-Pod, the partnership podcast from the Somerset Safeguarding Children Partnership. And I'm really pleased to have my guest with us today because going back to last December, December, 2024, we ran an online forum week of webinars throughout the week on the subject of online safety, which as I'm sure everybody is aware of is a constantly evolving area of safeguarding that we really need to do as much as we can and be on top of and make sure that we are aware of some of the online risks, some of the growing themes, but also sort of celebrating and making it real for children, young people about actually the positives of online world as well. following out from that, one of our guests as part of that forum week, we had some conversations and said, you know what, it would be great to get you along here today. So I'm really pleased to be joined in the studio today by Matt Mustafik who is the computing, I'll get this right in a second, the computing and online safety expert advisor. Is that right, Matt? Is that the title?

Digital Primary Teacher (01:05.167)
That is apparently my title, yes.

Steve Macabee (01:07.522)
Great stuff. Matt, thanks so much for catching up with us again today. Because I I know this is an area of real expertise for you, even though as we acknowledge, are constantly changing and evolving. And that's why we're quite keen to get you on. Because in terms of the work that you do, and we'll talk about that in a second, it sounds OK. But I think your real aim is about helping to educate people, keep people abreast of actually some of these changes and what takes place. So in terms of your role.

So you are part of eLIM within Somerset. I just want to, can you start off, if anybody didn't join us for the previous forum week or never heard of eLIM before, can you start off just kind of explain what is eLIM and what's the sort of work that you do?

Digital Primary Teacher (01:50.362)
Yeah, of course. So, so as you said, my, my role is as expert advisor for computing online safety, and that means managing the Elim service. Elim is part of Somerset council. It's a traded part. So schools kind of pay for our support. They choose whether or not to use our support. And we offer all sorts of different kind of packages for supporting them with their computing and their online safety provision. So that's things like offering training. I work a lot with subject leads, giving one-to-one support or school leaders.

helping them with their kind of strategy around the subjects. We have network meetings where lots of teachers get together remotely these days. And we also offer a lot of resources as well. So we've got planning resources, we've got surveys and things that schools can use, all sorts of different resources that kind of build that whole package of offering computing online safety in their schools.

Steve Macabee (02:41.742)
And I think that's why you're quite uniquely placed really, aren't you? Because you are constantly in contact with schools who are increasingly having a huge amount of responsibility placed on them around educating children, young people, around online safety, but also responsibility there of protecting children from harm within their settings as well. I think when we see the changes, the updates to keeping children safe in education, year on year,

there's been sort of further layers added, haven't there, around online safety. And I think I would imagine for a lot of schools in this evolving world, it can feel quite difficult to keep on top of that. So I presume that's a lot of what you do is trying to help people sort of keep up with the times and keep up with the changes.

Digital Primary Teacher (03:27.396)
Yeah, absolutely. And my background is in teaching. So I still, I remember the feeling of those constant changes and trying to keep up with them all the time whilst juggling, you know, your day-to-day job, which is teaching the children that you're responsible for. So yeah, you've nailed it really with the increasing importance and the increasing responsibilities on schools. I mean, I've been doing this job eight years and I mean, you mentioned keeping children safe in education. That's obviously our kind of key statutory document that we refer to.

Steve Macabee (03:39.382)
Yeah.

Digital Primary Teacher (03:56.42)
for safeguarding and when I started this job, online safety was an appendix, it was just an extra bit that was kind of tagged on the end. Whereas these days, for the last few years, it's been absolutely embedded throughout this. Basically every safeguarding issue potentially has online elements embedded within it. So yes, the landscape has changed very, very quickly and continues to change as you've alluded to.

Steve Macabee (04:02.542)
Mmm.

Steve Macabee (04:20.556)
Yeah, no, absolutely. I think, again, I think we've completely moved out of a world where online life and real life are separate things. Yeah. And I think sometimes for people that may be a older, don't recognize that sometimes that actually the idea of, I don't know, of bullying at school and then going home and putting it behind you is just not there anymore. Just take one example, isn't it?

that online bullying, harassment, cyberstalking, but also in terms of, you know, even online gaming, it? It's gone are the days of sitting in your bedroom playing your Xbox. It's now you're plumbed into the world. And I think most people are sitting there with headsets on talking to anybody, aren't they? So I think we've got to dispel this kind of perception of real life and online life as being separate because they're very, very integrated on there.

Digital Primary Teacher (05:16.398)
It's a huge part of my job is supporting people in understanding what the kind of world that the children are growing up in is like, and that it is different from, you know, well, my generation, I suppose there's a whole group of teachers now who are a generation below me, or maybe even below that as well, and have actually grown up with a lot more technology. I mean, I was lucky that I always had technology around me as I was growing up, but so different to the technology that...

children experience now. And again, you've, you've mentioned a lot of those key issues around the fact that, you know, bullying is a really good example because bullying has always existed and schools have always tried to address it and continue to try to address it and have struggled with that, that challenge of teaching. We teach children about bullying and that they shouldn't do it and children will tell us the right things, but we know that it still goes on.

and the exactly the same, kind of issues exist with cyber bullying. Most of the issues that we're dealing with online aren't really new issues. They're all the same things that schools have been dealing with for a very long time. It's just that they've got this added element. So as you say, cyber bullying is very different because it's 24 seven. It's very difficult to get away from. whereas, know, bullying on the playground can stop when the children go home and at least there's kind of some sort of respite from it. So.

Steve Macabee (06:38.093)
Yeah.

Digital Primary Teacher (06:38.318)
Yeah, that's a really good example. Gaming is another, you know, it's a great example. It's a really social, sociable activity now. You know, I was the stereotypical teenager sat in my bedroom playing video games when I was that age. that stereotype just doesn't exist anymore. You know, gamers are of all ages. They're male and female. They, you know, interact with each other all the time. It isn't, it isn't really a solitary activity for a lot of people anymore. So.

And that's really important to young people as well. You know, they will tell you how important that social side of technology is, not just gaming, but the other aspects of technology as well. So, yeah, as you say, just to go back to your point, a huge part of my role is supporting the adults in schools with understanding the experiences of the children they're teaching and helping them to see that it might be different from what they experienced growing up, but actually we can still support them. We can still help them. We can still...

teach them how to be healthy and safe with it, but also teach them how to really enjoy it and experience it positively as well.

Steve Macabee (07:41.134)
Just picking up on that, and obviously you're in contact with a lot of different schools, and primary and secondary. What sort of themes do you see coming through in terms of your work around online safety? Are there sort of common themes that you see sort of evolving? guess, I don't know, what is it that you come up against?

Digital Primary Teacher (08:00.292)
Yeah, we've probably mentioned a few of them already. mean, there are obviously, there's a whole range of potential issues. There's some really serious potential risks and harms. I'm pleased to say that those tend to be very rare. I certainly wouldn't call them trends or common themes. The common themes tend to be things like parents struggling to manage their children's screen time, getting that balanced activity, those kind of balanced activities at home.

So again, my job is to support schools to support families, which can be really difficult. And I do actually work with parents sometimes as well, or provide resources for schools to work with parents. Things like, particularly at primary age, children playing inappropriate games. Not just throughout, so there's the kind of obvious thing of children playing games that are above their age rating, if that makes sense, or playing a game that has an age rating above their actual age.

but also the fact that again, you've touched on it already, the fact that most games these days are online. And although the game itself might be technically age appropriate, you know, it's the, it's the online interaction that presents the risk. Who else are they talking to? What are those people saying to them? you know, is, is the language appropriate at its most, simple level, but also there's the potential for grooming, things like that. Again, I would say that's not a theme, but it's the kind of thing we see occasionally.

But I think the biggest one, and this was true when I was teaching and continues to be true, is probably what we've already mentioned really is children being unkind to each other. Those are things, again, I'm repeating myself really, but these are things that have always happened, unfortunately. Some children are unkind to other children. It happens in the park, it happens in the playground. And because children live part of their lives on social media, it happens on social media as well. So again, you know, these are issues that have always existed, but the way that they're...

manifesting themselves, suppose, is changing. So yeah, the biggest one is probably the kind of being unkind, supporting schools with that. And the frustration for teachers is they are teaching them about these things. You we're having those conversations with children. Children know the right thing to do. But as has always been the case, they don't necessarily stick to those things in their lives.

Steve Macabee (09:56.046)
Hmm.

Steve Macabee (10:05.198)
Mmm.

Steve Macabee (10:13.87)
Do you, I don't know whether you come across this so much, but I'm just wondering from what you're saying. Do you find sometimes with some of the schools you work with, there may be bit of a frustration that schools are saying, look, we're trying to do everything we can. We're doing lessons, we're doing activities, we're putting information out on newsletters to parents, but we can only do so much, but we're finding that's not being supported at home. When you talk about screen time and things like that. Do you find that as a frustration?

Digital Primary Teacher (10:40.484)
Yeah, absolutely. It's a frustration and it, and not only that it's not being supported at home, but maybe parents just don't know how to support it at home. And it's, it can be difficult to engage families. you know, or difficult, difficult to get parents to understand what it is that they need to do is simple things like having regular conversations, keeping devices in, in family rooms rather than in bedrooms. Those kinds of things can make a huge difference. Having really clear expectations about when devices get switched off, things like that. know, we see a lot of.

headlines about screen time. You even see adverts these days where the networks are advertising their tools which switch off the internet at certain times of night. those adverts are really great with me because actually I think that should be an agreement that a family have made and that should be a conversation they're having. Even on the advert, you see families arguing about it. And what you really want is education. want...

Steve Macabee (11:34.424)
Yeah.

Digital Primary Teacher (11:36.656)
parents and children to understand why those things are important for them to have talked about it and agreed their family rules or made a family agreement and then stick to them because they understand them rather than it being a clash or a point of tension. yeah, going back to your question, have, you know, it's really common for teachers to contact me and say, we've had this lesson, we did this assembly, I've spoken to the parents and yet this is still happening.

And it is a challenge, but as I keep saying, they're challenges that have always existed. Schools have for many years taught children about bullying and had anti-bullying weeks, but bullying still happens. So we have to accept that some of these things are still gonna happen and we just have to do everything that we possibly can, including trying to engage families. And partnership with parents is a big part of our...

Steve Macabee (12:09.262)
Mm.

Digital Primary Teacher (12:30.52)
Our resources that we offer, so our online safety planning resources for schools include ideas for engaging parents. We call it partnership with parents. And if you can get that up and running, and if you can make it effective, it's really powerful. And there's all sorts of different ways that different schools, different approaches that they take to that. Some schools actually use social media to engage parents and families. In other schools, it's face-to-face conversations, know, or workshops.

So there's all sorts of different ways of engaging parents, but it is challenging. If you can make it work, it's really powerful.

Steve Macabee (13:06.894)
And I think for me, something that really resonates for me that you just talking about is I think there's often a risk where if we as adults see potential risk in things, we try and avoid risk and we say, okay, we'll stay off that or don't go there or don't do this or what have you. And I think that's valid and it's completely understandable. But I think particularly from my perspective, when we talk about online safety, I think...

It's unrealistic to say, just stay off the internet or just don't do these things. Don't play these games. And I think my ethos, I think very much echoes with what you're saying is actually what's key is recognizing the benefits that online life has. And let's face it, we all these days, all of us, I think we'd be hypocritical to say, yeah, don't go online. Don't do this. But actually, how do we educate children, young people to make the right choices, make the right decisions and

I've talked about this sometimes in terms of access to online pornography and things like that. We know from research, children are accessing it very young sometimes, six, seven, eight, nine years old. And actually, I think it's probably unrealistic, sadly, to say, never do this, never look at this, never go. I think for me, nirvana, if you like, is actually if we can educate children, young people to get to a stage where

If they come across things like that, they go, they make a choice, say, actually, you know what? I don't want to access that. I don't think that's okay. I don't think that's all right. And the same as day to day online life is making those positive choices. Like you say around actually, yeah, there are these options here. and I guess again, sorry, I'm waffling now, but I guess in a way you've, you've related a few times to sort of the same, it's the same as it's not new stuff. It's the same as real life. Actually, we, do educate our children.

not to shoplift or not to hurt other people or not to be unkind Actually, it's really just an extension of that, isn't it? It's how we work with children, young people in this modern age, evolving age to make those positive choices about their lives and the lives of others, I guess.

Digital Primary Teacher (15:20.324)
Yeah, absolutely. You could be, you could be advertising our services for us, Steve, because you're talking about, thank you. You're talking about the ELIM approach to online safety and not just us. mean, lots of other organizations as well. work really closely with Southwest Good for Learning who are, although they're called Southwest Good for Learning, they're an international organization in terms of being recognized as experts. And they would say all, you know, all those things that you've just said. And you're absolutely right. It's about educating children that they do have a choice. And really we're not talking about.

Steve Macabee (15:23.512)
Well, I try, you know.

Digital Primary Teacher (15:49.934)
computing, although my role is both computing and online safety. Online safety fits much more comfortably within PSHE or RSHE than it does in computing really, because we're talking about relationships, behavior, we're talking about getting on and falling out, talking about what to do if you're worried about something, how to keep yourself safe, how to keep yourself healthy. Those are all RSHE issues. They just happen to be using technology, know, so what you were just describing about

teaching children that they have choice is the basis of our online safety scheme of work actually that we offer for schools. So when we originally wrote the resources, we did a lot of research into effective PSHE education and research shows that actually the best way to get children to, or the most effective way, it's not a magic wand, nothing is, but the most likely way to close that gap between children knowing the right thing to do.

and actually making those positive choices when they're faced with it is to help them rehearse it in school. you know, lots and lots of schools talk about it. They'll talk about the right thing to do and the wrong thing to do. And that means children know the right thing to say. But all of our ActiveBytes, that's how online safety scheme work, our ActiveBytes lessons are based around this idea of being active, actively practicing it. you know, seeing that there is a choice and...

rehearsing, being in that situation and making that choice. We do a lot of kind of role play activities and hot seating where you actually, where the children put themselves in the position of a person who's making that decision and what those thoughts might be in their mind about, well, I could do this and that would be really funny and I'd be really popular and have lots of friends. But I also know the right thing to do is this, you know, it's a challenging situation. We've all been there as children. We've all been there as teenagers. You want to do the cool thing. You want to do the funny thing. You want to get lots of

uh, likes on your Instagram post, but you also know that that might not be the best choice, you know, so it's helping children make those choices. And I think another really important point that you, that you touched on Steve is children, um, believing that the adults they're talking to understand that there is a positive side to technology. So another huge shift in approaches to teaching online safety in the last probably 15, 10 to 15 years is that

Digital Primary Teacher (18:14.21)
exactly what you were saying. A lot of our messaging when we first started teaching e-safety, as we used to call it, was don't do this, don't do that, be careful of this, this is dangerous, don't share your personal information. And then at the same time, the children were seeing adults entering all their personal information into a website because they wanted to do their supermarket shopping or do their banking online. So the messages we were giving children were clashing with what they actually saw us do.

Steve Macabee (18:33.134)
Mm.

Digital Primary Teacher (18:43.342)
And again, as people know, children learn a lot more from what they see us doing than what we tell them. So messages have evolved. It's become a lot more nuanced. It's become a lot more sophisticated, I guess, where we're saying, you know, rather than don't enter your personal information, it's why are you entering your personal information? Which information are you sharing? Who are you sharing it with? What are they going to use it for? Where's it going to be stored?

we need to be having those kinds of conversations with children from a really, really young age. And again, research shows that, and children will tell you actually, if they're talking to adults who recognize the positive sides of technology, as well as teaching them about the risks, they're much more likely to listen. If we only ever say, don't do this, don't do that, the internet's terrible, they'll just stop listening to us. They won't be interested in what we've got to say. So yeah, all of that, really, really important.

Steve Macabee (19:34.69)
Yeah. And it becomes a much more mysterious and interesting place. If you, if you constantly say, don't do that. Yeah. and I just want it like we talked about, you know, things are always evolving and changing all the times. And I know in previous podcasts I've done, I did one with, the internet child abuse team with, with Harvey A. Hearn. And we talked about AI technology evolving and what have you. And we are in a constantly sort of shifting.

Digital Primary Teacher (19:39.682)
Absolutely, yeah.

Steve Macabee (19:59.424)
environment at the moment. How do you feel that schools and other agencies are kind of responding to that ever-changing landscape around technology, but also kind of the statutory guidance that keeps on changing legislation like the online safety act we've had coming in. How do feel kind of people are responding to that? you think, do you feel that people are able to keep up with that at the moment or struggling with it?

Digital Primary Teacher (20:22.384)
There's another challenge and I think I feel like I've used the word challenge a lot already in this podcast. It's really difficult for teachers. I would say teachers in schools are incredibly resilient, incredibly adaptable. They want to keep up. They want to know the latest information, but it moves so quickly, as you've said, that it is really challenging for them because as said earlier, they are teaching children on a day-to-day basis. That's their job. So keeping up with all this stuff is really, really difficult.

And I see that as a big part of my role is to support them with that. So I spend a huge amount of my time reading, researching, listening to things, watching videos, looking at the latest research and reports, and then hopefully presenting that in a manageable way for schools. So, you know, when I do talk to schools, whether it's a network meeting, whether I'm working one to one or delivering some training, I'm trying to present that in a way, which is

First of all, accessible for teachers who might not be quite as interested as me, or have the time. That's the most important thing I think is teachers don't have the time to keep up with it, but also giving them practical support in terms of, okay, so what does that mean for a school? What can you do as a teacher? What can you do as a designated safeguarding lead? What can you do as a school, as part of your culture, as part of your policies? And as we've touched on already, the expectations have ramped up so much in recent years.

Steve Macabee (21:48.014)
Mm.

Digital Primary Teacher (21:49.368)
I mean, DSLs, designated safeguarding leads, the expectations on them to understand and lead on filtering and monitoring in their school, for example, is huge compared to only a few years ago. And these are people who are trained teachers. They're not technicians, you know, but they're expected to understand how the filtering and monitoring works, write policies, make decisions, have conversations with their school technicians, you know, and are fully responsible for things that they don't, they've never been trained to.

to use or manage. So it's a very steep learning curve for schools and as I say, it's part of my job really to help them with that.

Steve Macabee (22:25.774)
Mm, yeah, brilliant. if we get a chance at the end, it'd be great to kind of, if there's any good examples or good resources that you know of that might support in that, obviously the work that you do. And I know, again, for those of that weren't able to join us for our forum week in December 24, that was a large remit that we sort of gave to a lot of our guest presenters, including the Southwest Grid for Learning who became to us. It's like, people need these resources, they need the support. Because like I at the end of the day, the majority of people in these

positions of responsibility, they're teachers, they're trying to get on a teach and actually how can we make something accessible for them to be able to fulfill what they need to fulfill, isn't it? Do you still see any sort of common misconceptions around online safety with people? Do you find sometimes that you have to really work to shift that perspective of people?

Digital Primary Teacher (23:03.642)
Yeah, exactly.

Digital Primary Teacher (23:16.44)
I mean, I think that's probably the biggest misconception. I mean, there are a lot of misconceptions around the technology itself, you know, particularly around artificial intelligence and what it can do and can't do and might do in the future and those kinds of things. But I think the biggest misconception in terms of teaching online safety effectively is probably what we were touched on earlier on, which is teachers feeling like they need to be ahead of the children and need to know what the next trend is going to be.

Well, I don't use technology very much myself. So how can I teach children about it? And, and that's when I have that conversation with them about, actually, we're not really talking about technology. We're talking about life experience and positive relationships. And, you know, those are the times where you can really support the children you work with. So, you know, lots of adults feel like they have to keep up with, or they worry that they're not able to keep up with the technology that...

Steve Macabee (24:31.203)
Yeah.

Digital Primary Teacher (24:41.028)
that children are using and if they don't keep up with it, they won't be able to teach them how to stay safe. And as I saying, I think the really key message is you don't need to, it's not realistic to, and actually what you need to be doing is be that trusted adult. Be the person who shows an interest, be the person who asks them questions. What are you doing with your technology? Why do you enjoy it? Do your parents know you're doing it? Who do you do it with? Do you do it online or offline? Those kinds of questions are really key.

rather than feeling like you've got to stay ahead. You've got to be, you know, be that person who shows interest. And then if there is an issue, firstly, you might pick up on it in those conversations. But also secondly, those children that you've been talking to know that you're a person who's interested and a person that they can trust. And they're much more likely to come to you then if there is an issue, they're much more likely to want to speak to you. We talked earlier on about the, I think we would both, you know, both of us feel that actually

banning technology and stopping children from doing things is probably an ineffective approach. And again, that, you know, if we do try to ban children from doing things, if we do try to stop them from doing things, they're much less likely to want to talk to us. If there is an issue, then they're worried that you're going to take their devices away. You know, if they come to you and say, well, this horrible thing happened to me last night. If they think you're going to then stop them from using their devices. And I'm talking as

Steve Macabee (26:01.122)
Mm.

Digital Primary Teacher (26:10.146)
a school or as a parent now, they're not going to tell you because they don't want to lose their connection to their friends. They don't want to lose their access to gaming. know, so yeah, I think the biggest misconception is around adults feeling that they need to stay ahead of the children and you don't and you won't.

Steve Macabee (26:26.382)
Hmm. Hmm. No, thought, yeah, it's interesting to say that it's kind of a reframing is now I think, I think something I see sometimes are teachers and other professionals. And it can potentially add an extra layer of complication, I think. And sometimes online life can be less tangible. just to give you an example, we talked about bullying earlier, you know, if you're a teacher in the playground and you see one child,

physically bullying another child. I think most teachers feel quite equipped and comfortable going, great, I feel confident to deal with this and I'll get intervene and blah, And I think sometimes what I see sometimes is that little bit of insecurity is probably the wrong word, but uncertainty sometimes when it comes to online bullying, for example, of thinking, okay, well, I'm not too sure how I go about this.

I can't be quite as confident of who, to use the terms, know, sort of perpetrator and victim in those simple terms, it's harder to find that out or ascertain that. And I think that can make people feel sometimes like they're on the back foot with things. But like I say, actually, if you really boil it down to how you would respond to these things normally, it's, you know, it's all part of the same thing. It's not feeling like you have to be a tech wizard or, you know, really on top of all these things, we're ahead of the game.

in order to respond to them because yeah, okay, it may add an extra layer of complication, but also you can have it in the playground where it can appear in one way, but actually you'd have those conversations. You're trying to find out what the situation was. And I think in a lot of ways, like I say, it's about not being afraid to actually use the skills that people have already got, I guess.

Digital Primary Teacher (28:15.204)
Yeah, absolutely. I often say to adults I'm working with, what would you do if you saw this happening in the park? What would you do if you saw this happening in the playground? Or heard it, because it's more likely to be something that's been said if it's online. And the interesting thing is that actually when these things happen online, it actually can be easier to gather evidence because there are screenshots, there are records of these things happening. And the other thing is that you may not feel

Steve Macabee (28:34.382)
Mm.

Digital Primary Teacher (28:43.674)
confident with how to deal with something yourself, but somebody in school will or somebody in the local authority will, there will be somebody who can guide you in how to deal with it. The key is not to just leave it, is to be proactive in the same way that you would. If something feels wrong, if something feels uncomfortable, if something's happening that you know shouldn't be happening or you feel shouldn't be happening, is go and talk to...

your designated safeguarding lead. They will have had training. The DSL can talk to us, can talk to other members of the local authority, can talk to other organisations. Again, South West Grid for Learning run a really, really fantastic free service called POSH, Professional Online Safety Helpline. Anybody from a school, anybody that works with children can ring that helpline and get advice about what to do.

If something feels wrong, if there's something happening and you think this isn't right, I'm just not quite sure how to deal with it. There is advice and support out there. The thing is to be proactive and do something about it. Because if you don't, like anything else is likely to escalate. And it may be already part of a bigger picture. You know, that's the other thing. And we all know this as part of our safeguarding roles that you might see one little snippet of something happening, or you might just get a little sense of something that isn't quite right. But actually that might be part of a bigger picture. So it's really, really important to be.

Steve Macabee (29:49.933)
Mm.

Digital Primary Teacher (30:07.29)
flagging that straight away, going to the DSL, using organizations that can support you. And again, we offer that support, we offer support. So we've got, for example, one of the resources we offer for free on our website is an incident flow chart, which just schools can just have up on their safeguarding board, you know, or in the staff room so that if something happens, staff can refer to that and just say, have I done that? Have I done that? Yeah, okay, I followed all those guidelines. And then it tells them what to do next, you know. So there is support out there.

And just with the risk of really repeating myself, I think it's really important. The key is not to do nothing.

Steve Macabee (30:42.734)
And with that support, do you find sometimes that teachers that you work with may be feeling just completely overwhelmed with all of this? How do you kind of have you found that? And if so, how do you kind of work with them to provide that that reassurance?

Digital Primary Teacher (31:00.388)
I would say that's becoming less of an issue. Actually. I think when, when I first started doing this job, I was being contacted frequently by schools who didn't quite know how to deal with those issues. think as training has increased in these areas, as people have become more aware of it, schools are less reliant on outside organizations. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with using outside organizations if you need it, obviously, but schools have become more equipped. They become more aware. They're more.

Steve Macabee (31:22.392)
Hmm, I know.

Digital Primary Teacher (31:28.026)
confident in dealing with these things internally. And again, one of the things I want, the word I often use when I'm talking about my job is empowering. So whether that's talking about computing or online safety, I don't see it as my role to go into a school and do things for them. I can't, there's only one of me and there's hundreds of schools, but actually I don't think that would be effective either. think my job is to empower schools to know confidently how to do these things themselves or know where to go when they need advice or support.

Steve Macabee (31:35.278)
Hmm.

Digital Primary Teacher (31:57.264)
So, know, as I say, my job is to help them feel prepared, you know, and without wanting to sound too boring, if you've got a really clear policy that everybody really understands and everybody knows what to do if there's an issue and everybody knows who to speak to and how to record it, and it's part of your overall safeguarding response, because again, this is safeguarding. It's no different to any other safeguarding responsibilities that we're talking about.

most schools actually have those procedures in place now. But just to reiterate, there's nothing wrong with using an external agency if you want a bit of extra support.

Steve Macabee (32:32.418)
Yeah, absolutely. I think you're right. think sometimes I see it again in my role sometimes some real anxiety buildings up sometimes. for example, when it came in around keeping children safe in education and schools needing to have a policy around online, around, sorry, smart devices. And I know I was having conversations being contacted sometimes by schools who had...

sort of really tied themselves up in knots a little bit and saying, where's the line for this? And what do we need to think about? And we've got some members of staff who really upset because they're wearing fitness trackers and they're concerned that they're not allowed to be able to wear fitness trackers anymore, but they haven't just got a normal watch. And again, just, yeah, you sort of see that anxiety and you think, okay, just having those conversations, say, okay, well, let's shift the focus away from, you know, we need to have this smart device policy now.

What you need to think about is what are the potential risks that you need to consider and the potential safeguards around there. And, you know, if you've got, I wear a fitness tracker, mine, all it does, it takes my blood pressure and tells me how many steps I've done. Probably does other stuff, but I never look at it. That is literally all it can do. And it's not got any camera on it. It doesn't connect to the internet. The most connectivity it has is connecting to my phone, just to say, congratulations, you've done 10,000 steps today out on the back, you know.

Digital Primary Teacher (33:36.634)
We did.

Steve Macabee (33:55.662)
And actually, where's the risk in that? Where's the harm in that? But when you're thinking about maybe, know, smartwatches that you might have, which you can take photos, connect to the internet, basically, you've got a computer on your wrist. Actually, that's something quite different. And again, I think for me, it's just saying to people, actually, rather than just thinking blanket, this is bad, this is wrong, what are we going to do? Panic here. Actually, just breaking it out like you would do for anything else, you know, and in a way, would you allow a

teacher to walk in, I just use a terrible example, but would you allow a teacher to walk into children's toilets with a camcorder? Probably not, I would suggest. So yeah, that's the same sort of thing. If you can record images and video on your watch, it's the same sort of thing. And sometimes I think just simplifying things a little bit and breaking it down to its kind of bare essentials really is quite important.

Digital Primary Teacher (34:49.562)
Yeah, absolutely. And, know, I've, I've already alluded to policies and unfortunately policies are, you know, a really important part of our job. And, and, and as you say, just thinking these things through risk assessment is another phrase teachers don't like to hear because they, it sounds like a lot of extra work on top of your, your day job. But actually if you've been through that process and you've thought it through and you've talked it through and you've recorded the decisions that have been made and why they've been made, you've got that then, you know, you know what to refer to and

And I think the other part of what you're saying, Steve, is really important is that people having conversations about it. A lot of these things aren't statutory. A lot of these things aren't actually set out by the DFE or anybody else to say, you must have this in school and you don't have to have this because actually every school is unique. That's of the privileges of my job is getting to work with so many schools who are all so different. You know, the people that work in them are so different. The pupils they work with are so different. The, you know, the situation that they're kind of catchment area.

whether they're rural or not, there's so many variations that make every school unique. And the people that know that school the best are the teachers and the school leaders. So they are best placed to make decisions for that school. There are templates out there. And again, would point people towards, know, the Southwest Grid for Learning provides really, really brilliant detailed templates, which means you know you haven't missed anything. Because I think part of the...

Part of the fear, part of the anxiety that you're talking about comes from not knowing what you don't know. You know, what if I've missed something? What if I haven't thought of this? And the reason that I would recommend those Southwest Grid for Learning templates is they absolutely cover everything. And although it's a big job, looking through that policy and using that template, if you take it and adapt it and make it right for your school, again, you know you've covered everything. You know you've talked about everything.

But then what's really important obviously is to continually review that. So share it with all the staff, make sure all the staff have had some input, at least on an annual basis, get everybody to look at it again. Does it still reflect what we do? Is there anything we haven't got covered? Has anything changed in the last year? If it's to do with technology, I almost guarantee it has. So it needs looking at regularly, but it is possible. And again, there's support out there. So if you use all that support and you're proactive,

Steve Macabee (37:04.076)
Yeah, yeah.

Digital Primary Teacher (37:13.188)
you can be confident that you are making the right decisions because you know your school.

Steve Macabee (37:17.166)
And in terms of sort of technology, are there any sort of trends that you're seeing developing or on the horizon sort of developing that you're kind of keeping a close eye on at the moment that might affect schools?

Digital Primary Teacher (37:30.8)
I would say it's probably the same thing that everybody's got their eye on whether they're in schools or not and that's artificial intelligence. AI is on everybody's lips and unlike all the other technology we've been talking about, children are already using it. So there was some recent Ofcom research for example that said 50 % of eight to 17 year olds have used AI in the last year. So it's another one of those things where as teachers we could say, well children aren't using it yet, we don't need to teach them about that do we?

You know, a TikTok or games that are 18 rated or whatever that we, you know, would be easy to sweep under the carpet and say, well, that's not for them. So we don't need to worry about it. They are using it. They already are. So we need to be, I'm repeating myself again, but these are key messages, talking to them about it, listening to them, asking them what they're doing with it, finding out about the positive things about it, as well as the potential risks and harms. you know, AI.

Steve Macabee (38:09.742)
Yeah, absolutely.

Digital Primary Teacher (38:27.738)
has massive potential for reducing teacher workload, huge potential. It's already reducing my workload. I use it in my job for those kind of admin jobs that takes a human being a long time and a computer can do instantly, artificial intelligence can do instantly. It can create resources. As a teacher, I used to spend hours looking for just the right picture that I wanted to go with my presentation for a lesson because I wanted to engage the children and get them excited about something.

AI can create that picture for me in seconds, you know, so there's huge potential for AI to reduce teacher workload. There's also huge, massive potential for AI to support individual children, personalised learning, really understand the needs of an individual and help teachers to really personalise their lessons, really personalise the provision they're giving for each of the pupils in their class. Go on.

Steve Macabee (38:57.486)
Hmm.

Steve Macabee (39:20.206)
I was going say, think we're in a really, really interesting time. I'm going slightly off topic now for a minute, I do think we're in a really interesting time and bringing up AI, a massive time of transition. And I'm not sure we're fully aware of what that means yet. And I know there's a school of thought and I'm not giving a personal opinion on this because this is potentially in motive area.

there is a school of, a growing school of thought saying, actually, is it relevant to be teaching children certain things? Or is it more relevant to be teaching them about where they can access that information, how they access that information, and how they can discern correct information? And I think that's a huge challenge for all of us, very quickly growing in terms of, again, AI. So how do we discern what's fact and what's fiction and generated images or text or stories or anything?

Yeah, as opposed to real thing. I don't know. It's an interesting one, I think.

Digital Primary Teacher (40:21.988)
Yeah, and actually I would say that that particular example that you're using isn't new. So it is really important in terms of artificial intelligence can present us with inaccurate results. It can present inappropriate results, biased results, depending on the data set that it's being trained on. It can possibly infringe copyright. can, you know, depending on which tool you're using, it might be taking information that it shouldn't be taking.

But actually, of everything I've just mentioned, the inaccuracy, I'm trying to remember the things I mentioned now, inappropriateness, bias, copyright, those are all things we've been teaching children about as part of online safety for 10 or 15 years. I wrote a program called Information Detectives. This is before I worked for EELIN, but I was working with them as kind of collaborating with them on a project called Information Detectives. About...

11 or 12 years ago, I think, and it was all about helping children to understand that not everything they see online is real, not everybody they speak to online is who they say they are, that videos could be manipulated, that photos could be manipulated. You know, this isn't new stuff. The added layer is that all of those things that we've just been talking about aren't necessarily being created by human beings anymore. They might be being created by artificial intelligence, but we've been teaching those messages.

Steve Macabee (41:35.128)
Hmm.

Digital Primary Teacher (41:47.832)
about misinformation, disinformation, copyright, know, inappropriate, what happens if you come across something inappropriate for a really, really long time now, actually. They've been part of the school curriculum, although not necessarily a statutory part of the curriculum, which is another little tangent that we could go off on.

Steve Macabee (42:00.27)
Mmm.

Steve Macabee (42:08.302)
Yeah, but I think actually just raising that, I think that's important point again, isn't it? Because there is a lot of, there's a huge amount of responsibilities on schools now and a huge amount of expectations on schools. And yet when you still look at the demands of curriculum, you still look at Ofsted inspections, actually, don't always support that, I think is probably what I'm trying to say in a polite way.

I think that is again a real challenge for schools, isn't it? What do you prioritize? How do you prioritize that? And actually, how do you make that workable on a day-to-day basis, I guess?

Digital Primary Teacher (42:45.284)
Yeah, absolutely. you know, yeah, you're absolutely right that the statutory guidance isn't always specific enough. There is really excellent non-statutory guidance, which is referred to, so keeping children safe in education, for example, refers to a framework called Education for Connected World, which is not the national curriculum for online safety because there isn't one, but it certainly can be used in that way. And again, just to talk about the...

the primary online safety scheme of work that we've got, we have made sure that everything in education for connected world is covered because that really does spell out in a really clear way what should be taught at each age group in terms of online safety from four years old right up to key stage four. And also how to teach it in a kind of, you what's age appropriate because all of these things are relevant to all age groups.

Steve Macabee (43:40.525)
Mm.

Digital Primary Teacher (43:43.232)
obviously what's difficult is knowing how to approach it in an age-appropriate way so absolutely yeah yeah yeah

Steve Macabee (43:47.534)
And an engaging way, think. And getting that balance between fun and enjoyable and engaging, as opposed to, yeah, alongside actually informative. And I think that's real challenge. And I think that's a lot of, again, what the work that you do and the information you produce, the resources, the schemes, that sort of thing, it? And what are some of the things you're working on at the moment in terms of sort what you produce and what you promote?

Digital Primary Teacher (43:53.102)
Yeah, totally,

Digital Primary Teacher (44:13.69)
So again, mean, that changes all the time depending on kind of what schools want. So on an annual basis, I do a survey, but I also talk to teachers all the time about what is it that you need, what is it that you could do with support with. Again, I don't want the violins, but there is just one of me. So I have to prioritize like schools do. I have to think really carefully about what are the kind of key priorities in terms of supporting schools. So things like.

online safety training, keeping our resources up to date. All of those kinds of things are really key parts of my role that I have to be doing all the time in terms of developing new things. Again, I think it's at the moment, the thing that schools are asking for is support with artificial intelligence. not only how, you know, around safety, but also how can we make effective use of it? What should we be teaching children about artificial intelligence? how can we teach them to, you know, we, as we said before, children are using.

it already. So how can we teach them to use it well and in an exciting way, as you've just said, but also keep themselves safe and keep themselves healthy while they're using it and understand that they're not talking to a human being. So really, if you don't know how much use you make of AI Steve, I think you're, quite a tech enthusiast.

Steve Macabee (45:26.35)
Well, it's... Yeah, I do. And again, I think it's incredible how fast it's evolving now. And actually, I was reflecting on this the other day, it only seems like yesterday, God, I sounded old then, but it only seems like yesterday where, as a team, we were looking at chat GPT, when they suddenly released that to the public and it was accessible. And it's like, I don't know how long ago that was. I'm sure it was only, it feels like only a year ago. It might be a couple of years ago now.

Digital Primary Teacher (45:41.104)
You

Digital Primary Teacher (45:54.414)
bit more expect a bit more yes

Steve Macabee (45:56.11)
Yeah, I'm showing you. But I'm on my phone now. I've got co-pilot embedded onto my phone. I've got a bit of, I've got an AI app which generates songs. Yeah, it's just a bit of fun and you know, and you can put it in, I want to R &B tune about flying donkeys and it will just, within seconds, it will produce one. And actually, yeah, a lot of them are quite good, you know? And that's, yeah, it feels like we're on an exponential curve with that at the moment of...

I say in terms of things evolving and becoming so accessible. and actually even saying that on my phone recently it updated and it's the Google bit, whatever. And now again, I will routinely just ask it things.

Digital Primary Teacher (46:39.866)
Yeah. And people, there's a, I don't know you've heard the phrase one click search. mean, the whole world of search engines is changing because of AI. know, when you type a search into the Google search bar or whichever search engine you use, the first results you get used to be the adverts. And we had to teach children about the fact that don't forget that the first three results there say add next to them and they're there because the companies have paid for it. Actually that's changed. The first message you see now is an AI response to your search term.

Steve Macabee (46:55.117)
Mmm.

Digital Primary Teacher (47:06.672)
And research is showing that people aren't bothering to scroll through any of the other results because they just read the AI response and they've got all the information they need immediately. And I'm like you, I've, I've got copilot on my phone and I use it. Um, the other day I used it to help my family and I find a restaurant to go to because, know, we were looking for a particular restaurant in a particular town. didn't know very well. We wanted particular things on the menu. I could have scrolled for hours through menus, trying to find those things. Copilot did it in a few seconds, you know, so here's

Steve Macabee (47:22.254)
Yeah.

Steve Macabee (47:33.452)
Yeah, but yeah.

Digital Primary Teacher (47:34.796)
It's exciting and there's some really good stuff that it does. So that's why we want to help children understand those things as well as the risks and harms.

Steve Macabee (47:43.33)
Hmm. Actually, it's funny you say that because again, I'm sort of, think I'm in a process of retraining myself a little bit because I had exactly the same scenarios as you were talking about the other day. I I can't remember what I was looking for, but I was looking for something online and I pulled up Google and used my phone. It's like, where, yeah, blah, blah. Where can I find this or how much is this? can't remember what it was now. And I was searching, I was clicking into different websites and stuff and couldn't quite find the answer I wanted. And I literally paused for a minute and went, Oh, hang on. was just like, Google.

blah blah blah blah blah blah. There you go, there's the answer. was like, okay cool and I think yeah I'm in process of retraining my brain a bit to go actually yeah you don't have to spend hours going into different websites it will do it for you it will troll the information and bring it back and yeah you need to check it.

Digital Primary Teacher (48:13.038)
Yeah,

Digital Primary Teacher (48:25.648)
And there's a lot of companies who don't want us to know that because they spend a lot of time getting their search result to the top of the Google search. And actually what they need to do now is get their search result into the AI response. So, yeah, I'm the same as you. You find yourself scrolling through something or spending too long on something and then you realize AI could have done that for you much more quickly. So yeah, that's it. I can't remember how we got onto this conversation, but they're really important points that.

Steve Macabee (48:33.293)
Mmm.

Steve Macabee (48:37.187)
Yeah.

Steve Macabee (48:44.398)
don't have to do this. Yeah.

Digital Primary Teacher (48:53.198)
there are benefits to all these things as well. So when we're teaching children about using them safely, again, just to harp on about the same old thing really, but you know, if we're only ever saying to children, don't do this, AI is dangerous, AI won't, you AI, you shouldn't be doing this, you shouldn't be doing that. They're not, children aren't gonna listen to us, they're gonna go home and try it out for themselves. Whereas, if we teach them about the benefits and the things that it does really well and how to use it safely.

Steve Macabee (48:55.491)
Mm.

Digital Primary Teacher (49:18.692)
that's going to be much more effective, you know, and then they'll grow up digitally literate. I can't believe I haven't said digitally literate or digital literacy at any point in this conversation yet, because actually that's where I think we should be going is teaching children to be digitally literate.

Steve Macabee (49:24.046)
you

Steve Macabee (49:33.902)
Well, you got it in there three times, I think. I know as well, I'm sort of talking about sort of initiatives and things like that that you're involved in. I know, I noticed actually just looking at your email signature sort of earlier today, you've got a whole thing, load of things listed in there of like sort of 360 save. got, you're a barefoot advocate, which I presume doesn't sort of involve walking around Glastonbury Festival with much feet. What are some of those things you're involved in?

Digital Primary Teacher (49:34.928)
Good.

Digital Primary Teacher (49:56.624)
Hahaha

Digital Primary Teacher (50:01.242)
So 360 Safe is fantastic and something that I would highly recommend is, again, it's Southwest Grid for Learning, so I need commission from them, I think. Actually, 360 Safe is a free tool that schools can use that helps you in a really thorough way review your online safety provision on a regular basis. So you, I'm talking schools here. They do offer other tools as well for early year settings, for any other organization that.

Steve Macabee (50:09.512)
Thank you for this.

Digital Primary Teacher (50:29.764)
that works with children. I think there's a tool that libraries and youth centers and things like that can use as well, equivalent. The one I work with is called 360 Degrees Safe. It's, as I said, a free tool that schools can use to regularly review their online safety provision. It can lead to accreditation. So if you want to, if you get to that stage, you can use the tool as evidence that you are at accreditation level. want, you know, I said I work with South Chris...

West grid for learning. One of the things that I do for them and on behalf of them is that I'm an assessor for that accreditation. And what that means apart from again, being really privileged and being able to go into schools and talk to them about their online safety provision is that I can support the other schools I work with in really effective online safety. you know, that's so I, it gives me that really broad understanding and helps me keep up as well with the changing and the changes in, what's happening.

Steve Macabee (51:23.032)
Mm.

Digital Primary Teacher (51:26.892)
And so one of the packages we offer, for example, as Elim is a one-to-one support package for individual schools where I will meet with them on a regular basis to go through their 360 safe review, help them with their review, but also help them then to action plan, prioritize and make it accessible because, the tool, like any self-review tool will give you a whole list of things that you should be doing. What I, my part of my job in that role is to...

help them to prioritize and help them understand what that looks like in their school. Because again, it's different in every school. We also offer termly workshop. So I've got lots of schools that use 360 Safe themselves in school. And I run a termly online workshop where all of those schools get together, do a review, but while they're doing that review, they get to talk to each other. They get some peer support, they get support from me. So we support schools with that 360 Safe tool.

The other organization that you mentioned, Barefoot, no, absolutely nothing to do with Gostnery Festival, nothing to do with going to the beach. They're called Barefoot Computing. I'm an ambassador for them because again, I think their resources are fantastic and free. I try and point schools towards free resources as much as I can. Barefoot have all sorts of things that I could talk about. I suppose the two things that they're best known for are their unplugged resources. So that's...

Steve Macabee (52:26.542)
Mm.

Digital Primary Teacher (52:52.342)
lesson plans and other materials that support schools with teaching computing and online safety concepts, but without needing to have the devices in front of the children. Very often, actually, when you're trying to teach children computing or online safety, the device is a distraction because you want to teach them a particular concept or you want them to really understand something or you want to discuss something or as we said earlier on, rehearse something. If they've got a laptop in front of them or an iPad, they're very likely to want to be playing on that. So

Steve Macabee (53:08.462)
Yeah.

Steve Macabee (53:20.782)
Mm.

Digital Primary Teacher (53:21.072)
Although obviously we need devices as part of our provision, sometimes it's good to teach in an unplugged way and Barefoot resources are brilliant for that. The other thing that Barefoot are fantastic for, and this actually brings me back to the conversation or the question you asked me earlier, Steve, about other things I'm working on is early years. I'm a huge believer that we need to start having these conversations with children as early as possible. So I mean, as soon as they join us in foundation stage or actually

Steve Macabee (53:39.63)
Thank

Digital Primary Teacher (53:51.106)
early years settings, you know, again, in an age appropriate way, but we need children will be using devices, you know, lots of three to five year olds, believe it or not, are all already independently using social media. So we need to be having these conversations in an age appropriate way from a really, really young age, but also all the conversations about, wow, isn't it brilliant that this iPad can do this, you know, and let's do some painting and also let's do some painting on the iPad.

Steve Macabee (54:01.685)
Mm.

Yeah.

Digital Primary Teacher (54:17.934)
What was good when we did it without the iPad and what was good when we did it with and all those kinds of conversations, digital literacy, in other words, I've said it again, Barefoot Computing offer really fantastic early years resources for helping children to learn those concepts. But what I like about the Barefoot resources, Barefoot early years resources, which are free, is that they don't ask early years and foundation stage teachers to do anything different from what they're already doing.

Steve Macabee (54:25.634)
You cut it in there again.

Digital Primary Teacher (54:47.98)
It just supports them in understanding how the continuous provision that they're already providing is teaching children computing concepts, is already teaching children about online safety. And it just helps those staff members to really clarify that for themselves.

Steve Macabee (55:04.526)
Yeah. Oh, great stuff. And for anybody listening to this, I'll pop the links for that into the chat. Sorry, into the description for the episode as well, because I'm sure a lot of people are going to be listening to this right now going, oh, God, I've got to quickly write that down because that sounds fantastic. Absolutely. And like I say, there's loads of really good stuff out there, isn't there? I think it's just finding it sometimes. like I said earlier, you don't know what you don't know. So we will try and support with that and, yeah, link in with all that information for you. So Matt, thank you so much. I'm just trying, you know, kind of moving forward.

Digital Primary Teacher (55:16.836)
Yeah, free resources, free resources. Yeah. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah.

Steve Macabee (55:34.048)
Like we said a couple of times, it's just you, just a little old you developing things. But I guess, yeah, if you could kind of dream big, if you could have a wish list and if you could go, do you know what? I'd love to do this as a project. I'd love to evolve this. Is there anything that you'd love to get your teeth stuck into?

Digital Primary Teacher (55:49.668)
Well, I'm going to say it again, digital literacy. If I was going to dream really, really big and completely unrealistic, I would fully rewrite the computing and online safety curriculums to be a digital literacy curriculum. That would be my absolute pie in the sky dream. That's actually not going to happen. But a project I would really, really like to do, which is more realistic, is actually a repeat of something I did.

a few years ago, which is a pupil voice project. Soon after I joined the Elim team, I was really lucky to be able to go to lots and lots of schools in Somerset and talk to the pupils in mainstream primaries, mainstream secondaries in special schools and talk to them about how they use technology and what they liked about it and what they were worried about, what kinds of things they were doing. It was firstly for me personally, a really

fantastic opportunity to just hear their perspective and really inform what I was doing. And I think it helped me with my understanding significantly. But what we turned that into is a series of YouTube videos to share with schools, you know, so that they could really understand the children's perspective, the pupil voice, all age groups, all abilities, all levels of interest. I had some children who just weren't interested in technology, but I still talk to them about technology.

and it was interesting the kind of things that they were talking about. And those YouTube videos are still available and still really interesting. And I think one of the things that they encouraged schools to do was then to watch those little clips and then go away and have similar conversations with their own pupils. Again, I'm a real advocate for pupil voice and teachers really listening to the children that they work with. Because we've talked a lot generically today and obviously the nature of my job means that I have to. I'm talking to hundreds of schools.

but actually it's really key to also recognise the experiences of the individual children you work with. I'm teaching teachers to suck eggs here, they know that. But what I can help with is what kinds of conversations to have with them, what kinds of questions to ask. And again, so, you know, these videos I think were really powerful, really important, but they are now nearly 10 years old and I would love to repeat that process and hear.

Digital Primary Teacher (58:10.618)
how that's changed and what children now are doing. know, some of those children I spoke to now will have their own children. Sorry, the children I spoke to then will be old enough now to have their own children. So I would love to run another pupil voice project, speak to children now about what they're doing with technology, what they think technology might be like in the future. One thing I didn't speak to children about last time, but I would love to this time if I did it again, would be...

Steve Macabee (58:22.19)
Mm.

Digital Primary Teacher (58:38.874)
how they think technology might support them in their future careers. That's a real area of development in the curriculum now and around digital literacy, children's understanding of technology, understanding how people use technology in their jobs. And we're not talking about tech jobs, know, not necessarily being a data scientist or a computer programmer. All jobs now have some element of technology. So a big area of development within the curriculum at the moment is

Steve Macabee (58:42.798)
Mm.

Steve Macabee (58:55.458)
Hmm.

Digital Primary Teacher (59:05.786)
helping children understand how people use technology in their jobs and how technology might support them in their future jobs. For a lot of these children, we don't even know what those jobs will be. They don't exist yet, you know, because they're developing at such a rapid pace. So I'd love to have those kinds of conversations with current pupils. And again, hopefully on the back of that, be able to share it with schools and encourage schools to have those kinds of conversations with their pupils anyway.

Steve Macabee (59:16.59)
Mm.

Digital Primary Teacher (59:30.49)
So I don't know at the moment whether I'll be able to do that, but it's certainly on my mind. What we do provide that teachers can use if they want to is free surveys. So on our website again, we've got computing, pupil voice surveys, online safety, pupil voice surveys, and parent surveys as well that schools can just use with their own children and really get that insight into what their children and their families are doing.

Steve Macabee (59:56.398)
Sounds great. I'll make sure that I pop all of those links into the description for this episode because there's loads for people to take away from that, I think. Matt, listen, thank you so much. It's always great talking to you. I tend to go off on tangents for these things, but I think it's such an interesting area of things evolving at the moment. I say it's an area I think that people become...

Digital Primary Teacher (01:00:02.319)
Yeah, brilliant.

Steve Macabee (01:00:21.218)
can become quite anxious about, understandably. But I think it's right, it's important to embrace these things and actually work with them and feel confident, I think, in a shifting sense environment that we're in. So thanks so much for the work that you do and the support that you give to schools, which I know is really invaluable to them. And I know from talking to a lot of schools, they really appreciate your help and your support. And importantly, thanks for coming in today.

and talking to me about this and I'm sure there's going to be lot of takeaways for lot of people listening to this.

Digital Primary Teacher (01:00:52.922)
Brilliant, thanks Steve, thanks for having me. And I would just say to any schools, anybody who works in school who's listening, get in touch with me. I'm very privileged that I'm not trying to juggle anymore the classroom with all these other things. So, you know, if you've got a question about computing, you've got a question about online safety, it's probably quicker to email me than it is to try and find out the answer yourself. And it's not just schools in Somerset. I work with a lot of schools outside Somerset. We've even got some schools in Portugal who use our resources. So, you know.

Steve Macabee (01:01:20.482)
Yeah.

Digital Primary Teacher (01:01:20.952)
If you're in a school and you've got a question, get in touch anytime. I'm happy to try and help.

Steve Macabee (01:01:26.04)
Perfect. And I'm sure Matt will be using his expertise and not just using ChatGPT to give you an answer. Great stuff. All right. Thanks, then. Take care of yourself. And I'm sure we will catch up again soon. Take care. Bye-bye.

Digital Primary Teacher (01:01:30.562)
I promise.

Digital Primary Teacher (01:01:37.722)
Thanks Steve, it's been great. Thank you very much.