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Children do not leave their online lives behind when they walk through the school gates. A disagreement that begins in a WhatsApp group on Sunday evening can become a friendship problem in school on Monday morning, while a child who is contacted by someone during an online game at home may arrive in class worried, distracted or withdrawn.
Online and offline life are now deeply connected, and that has important implications for safeguarding. If we want children to be safer online, schools cannot do it alone. Parents and carers need to be part of the conversation too.
Online safety is no longer just an ICT issue
Online experiences now intersect with many of the safeguarding concerns schools already manage.
Cyberbullying can affect attendance and wellbeing. Group chats can intensify friendship disputes. Gaming platforms can allow children to communicate with people they have never met, while social media can expose young people to harmful content, misinformation and unhealthy online communities.
Artificial intelligence has added another layer, with children using chatbots for advice, experimenting with AI companions and generating or sharing AI-created content.
The technology will keep changing, but the safeguarding principle remains the same. Schools need to understand enough about children’s digital lives to recognise when an online experience may be contributing to a wider concern.
Much of children's digital life happens at home
Schools can teach online safety, respond to incidents and put appropriate safeguarding systems in place, but they cannot see what is happening on a child’s phone at 9pm.
Parents and carers may be the first to notice that a child has become withdrawn, is repeatedly checking their phone, is suddenly asking for money or is upset after receiving messages.
The challenge is that keeping up can feel almost impossible. A parent may only just have understood TikTok when their child moves on to Snapchat, or they may think of Roblox mainly as a game without fully understanding its social and communication features.
Schools cannot expect parents to become technology experts, but they can help them remain part of the safeguarding conversation.
KCSIE places parental engagement within the wider online safety approach
Keeping Children Safe in Education 2026 says that online safety should be a “running and interrelated theme” within the whole-school or college approach to safeguarding.
Importantly, this includes considering online safety when planning the curriculum, staff training, the role of the designated safeguarding lead and parental engagement.
KCSIE does not prescribe how often schools should communicate with parents about online safety, but it does reinforce an important principle: parent engagement should form part of the wider digital safeguarding approach.
The Department for Education’s online safety guidance also encourages schools to proactively engage parents and carers and to extend support so that online safety principles can be reinforced at home.
The annual parent webinar still has a role
Many schools already run online safety evenings or webinars for parents, and these can be extremely valuable.
The challenge is that children’s digital lives do not change once a year.
A platform can introduce a new feature, a scam can suddenly become widespread, or an AI service that parents have never heard of can quickly become part of children’s everyday lives.
This does not mean schools need to overwhelm parents with constant updates. It does mean there is value in keeping the conversation going throughout the year.
Use the communication channels parents already have
Parent engagement does not necessarily mean creating another portal or organising another event.
Schools already communicate with families through newsletters, parent apps, email, websites and social media. Those same channels can be used to reinforce online safety.
A newsletter might include a short explanation of a change to Roblox parental controls. A parent app could share a short video about Snapchat location sharing. A website could offer practical advice on sextortion, AI-generated images or online scams.
The aim is not to tell parents about every new trend, but to give them useful information about the issues most relevant to children at the point when it matters.
Keep it practical
Parents do not need another long list of dangers. What they need is a clear understanding of what is happening, why it matters, what they should look out for and what they can do next.
If the issue is gaming, that might mean showing where communication settings can be changed. If it is location sharing, it could mean explaining how to check who can see a child’s location. If it is AI-generated images, it might mean helping parents understand what to do if a fake image starts to circulate.
Short, practical communication can often be more useful than simply directing parents towards a large library of resources and expecting them to work out what is relevant.
Schools and parents see different parts of the same picture
Schools see children in the classroom and wider school community, while parents see what happens at home. Neither side necessarily has the complete picture.
A school may notice a change in behaviour, while a parent knows that upsetting messages are arriving every evening. A teacher may see a friendship breakdown, while a parent knows it began in a group chat.
Digital safeguarding therefore needs to involve the adults around the child, not just the child themselves.
We do not need parents to know everything about technology. We need them to understand enough to ask questions, recognise when something may not be right and know where to turn for help.
Online safety does not stop when a child leaves school, and safeguarding should recognise that too.
Parven Kaur
Parven Kaur is the founder of Kids N Clicks, an award-winning organisation dedicated to children's online safety and digital safeguarding. A winner of the Scottish Cyber Awards 2026, She also serves on Barnardo's National Advisory Board in Scotland. She works with schools, businesses and organisations to raise awareness of emerging online risks and help create safer digital environments for children and families.
