7
$\begingroup$

I am a Faculty Teacher of Computer Science and am in my NQT year. I have been asked to re-apply for my job, to become a permanent teacher at the school, and have my interview next Tuesday. The school has asked me to teach E-safety, however I’ve only just taught the content I created a little less than 2 months ago.

I want to teach cyber-security to the year 8’s and talk about white, grey, and black hat hackers, social engineering, phishing, and then how to prevent this kind of attack. However, my HOF has said cybersecurity isn’t E-Safety and with no other computer science teachers at the school, I’m turning to my fellow practitioners for some help. If cybersecurity isn’t E-Safety, what should I focus my lesson on?

$\endgroup$
1
  • $\begingroup$ Where are you based? $\endgroup$ Aug 7, 2021 at 22:18

2 Answers 2

8
$\begingroup$

E-Safety is typically used to mean safety online, which for kids is usually a bit of awareness training around scams, dangers of dodgy sites, online bullying, awareness that anything that happens online can be permanent etc

Cyber Security is learning about controls, attack and defence, risk management, hacking, perimeter security, social engineering... the list goes on: please visit Security Stack Exchange to learn more - we have a huge list of topics.

I give a lot of courses to schoolkids (12 years and older) and university students and while I mostly focus on the safety aspect, I do bring in a bit of cyber security as it can be interesting, it may inspire some of them to take it as a career, and knowing a bit can help them protect themselves. So you can probably spin it as an e-safety and cyber security module - there is value in both.

A useful resource for both is the community of BSides events - I run BSides Edinburgh and BSides Glasgow, but there are ones all over the world. Cooper (Ministraitor) videos as many of the talks as he can and publishes them on his site - mostly infosec, but safety is covered in quite a few.

$\endgroup$
6
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ That’s perfect, thank you very much indeed. I’ll take a look at the recourses given. I was planning to do a E-safety spin off to try make it work. $\endgroup$ Jun 2, 2021 at 22:42
  • $\begingroup$ I think I heard you say, "Cyber Security is about protecting systems, while E-safety is about protecting users." $\endgroup$ Jun 3, 2021 at 21:10
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Not really, Solomon. That's a generalisation which misses out on all the useful detail. $\endgroup$
    – Rory Alsop
    Jun 4, 2021 at 11:16
  • $\begingroup$ @SolomonSlow I think it's more like "E-Safety is about users protecting themselves from all of the dangers of the internet, both digital and analog." $\endgroup$
    – Ben I.
    Jun 11, 2021 at 12:14
  • $\begingroup$ @BenI., Well, yeah. In the context of this forum, it would be about teaching users to protect themselves, and Cyber Security would be about teaching (future) owners and (future) administrators to protect their systems and their client's data. $\endgroup$ Jun 11, 2021 at 14:29
0
$\begingroup$

I looked at the UK national caruculum, and CAS progression pathways (advisory document), and serprisingly don't see e-safety mentioned. I did see “use of … safely”. This was in the primary national caricula KS1 and KS1 (years 0 →6). and in the progression pathways under “communication and networks”.

I have always though that tying e-safety into other topics to get a strong understanding was the best way to go. Better that “don't do this. don't do what you see adults do. Bla bla bla…”. If they understand thinks, if they understand their advosary, then we can discuss what can be done to protect our-selves.

$\endgroup$

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.