Schools sometimes face warnings about scares, dangerous challenges or online trends, which may refer to rumours of violent events taking place offline, or ‘bad’ apps, sites or games.Some warnings may come from official sources, sensationalised media stories or eye-catching graphics. The responses to these and the sharing of information may significantly impact children's safety and emotional wellbeing.
Please take a look below to help you inform your approach:
Why is it not always helpful to name and share?
While sharing specific names of challenges or trends may seem proactive, it can often be an unhelpful response because doing so can:
Give free publicity - Naming a specific "off-limits" app or trend can pique curiosity. After all, telling a child something is off-limits or dangerous, what it’s called and where to find it, may inadvertently drive children to search for and engage with the very harm you were trying to prevent.
Spread panic - as well as fuelling anxiety, this may discourage open, constructive conversations with children, crucial to building their digital resilience.
Generate a false sense of security - parents may erroneously think they just need to ban one particular app or game, rather than think more widely about online safety and digital literacy.
How should schools respond?
Try instead to do the following in relation to both children and parents:
Discuss the general risks without going into specifics
Use non-scary examples to talk about how to respond
Remember to adopt a balanced approach to discussing technology use
Encourage continuous dialogue between children and parents about their online lives
Use a drip feed approach, sharing guidance throughout the school year
Remind children who to talk to and where to get help (including anonymous reporting mechanisms within school and external sources)
Consider your serious incident policy and procedures in relation to hoaxes. Are these up to date? Are they appropriate and can be followed by all stakeholders? Do they outline clear roles, responsibilities and processes?
Following a recent viral scare, feedback from 130 London students revealed that the volume and tone of online content caused genuine emotional distress, regardless of whether the threat was real. Crucially, many young people felt their voices were lost in the adult-led response.
Despite these concerns, students demonstrated significant maturity through:
Safeguarding instincts - young people described feeling an immediate need to protect their families, siblings, and close friends when encountering harmful or provocative online content.
Understanding of reporting routes - they showed good awareness of how to escalate concerns, whether to trusted adults, schools, parents, or through direct reporting mechanisms on social media platforms.
Non-amplification as a protective behaviour - many recognised that engaging with or sharing harmful posts fuels their visibility and momentum. Choosing not to share content was seen as an important form of harm reduction.
Peer-to-peer reassurance - informal conversations among friends were a key method for sense checking, calming fears, challenging myths, and reducing anxiety within their own networks.
Although based on a North London cohort, these insights are likely to reflect wider sentiment among young people across the Nation.
Emerging prevention opportunities for schools include:
Youth-Led Communication: Centring lived experiences in safety messaging and the curriculum.
Rapid Reassurance: Strengthening channels for quick myth-busting to support parents and pupils.
Collaborative Resilience: Working with local partners to build robust, community-wide counter-narratives.
