Internet access in Golden Time - am I over-reacting

[opioneers]

DD is 9, and their current teacher is allowing them internet access during Golden Time.

I'm not wild about this anyway, because until now they've been doing drawing and board games, which is a bit more collaborative and social.

But she's also Googling unsupervised, which I am not very happy about at all. I know they will have all manner of safety measures on their internet, but it's still very possible for her to find stuff I wouldn't want her to be reading without there being an adult round to discuss it with, e.g. news reports and so on. She's a good reader and will tackle stuff that other children her age wouldn't.

However I know that we are very restrictive on screen time and so I'd really like to know what other people think before I talk to school.

I agree to an extent Thecat but my point is that the teacher should have tried out the task themselves before setting 'research Andy Warhol and present five facts about him to the group.' They then would have realised that some of the information was more than a bit and changed the task accordingly. For example, they could have presented the facts in a worksheet (no googling required) then asked the DCs to do some art work at home, or directed them to a specific, safe, site.

Yes I think it's been a bit of a wake up call for the school. It was a supply teacher who set the work (in fairness she did also set some art homework) and the regular teacher has now discussed the issue with her.

However I still think it shows that children should not be left to explore the internet at school in the way that some pps suggest - the school filters do not protect them fully and there is no substitute for adult supervision.

Can I suggest you talk to the school.. I had to speak to teacher about online access as a result of what DS came home with..I was showed exactly how internet access was monitored and was reassured with the conversation.

Thecat - as far as I know she was just googling, which is what concerns me. (and at the risk of identifying myself, what she discovered was that Clara died in the Dr Who that we hadn't got round to seeing yet, so she then became distraught at a school event later that day, when she had time to think about it, which is what kicked all this off). And yes, I agree, there is no substitute for adult supervision, which is why I am not wild about unfocused Googling in golden time.

And because of her obsession with Dr Who, I suspect she is only a few clicks away from Malcolm Tucker, which also concerns me a bit, although mostly in terms of how this would get reported home by other children.

I'm speaking to the class teacher tomorrow, mainly to get reassurance about filters and to ask about oversight.

Good luck talking to the teacher. Please let us know how you get on!

I wouldn't be mad about it either tbh. I would prefer golden time was for playing/interacting/doing less academic activities, not staring at a screen.

Well, the filters are all very very strict I am told, so nothing untoward can happen. But there is also a teacher in the room, and they're not having computer access every week, so I am going to leave it for now, but we've agreed we will review this if there are any other problems. And we will talk to DD about telling her teacher At Once if she comes across anything else upsetting.

Thanks for all the help and opinions, it's really helped (in that I went into that meeting as a reasonable person which I might not have done otherwise!)