Lesson video

Hi, I'm Rebecca, your computing teacher.

Now this lesson covers cyberbullying, and this can be a sensitive topic for some people.

So if that applies to you, then you might want to do this lesson with a trusted adult nearby, just in case.

You're also going to need a pen and paper and to remove as much distractions as possible so that you can really focus on this lesson.

Once you've done that, we can begin.

In this lesson, you will describe the term cyberbullying, you'll explain the effects of cyberbullying, you'll demonstrate how to get help, and you'll demonstrate how to support others.

So what is cyberbullying? Spend a few moments writing down your thoughts.

Pause the video now while you do this.

As you get older and begin to use social media apps, it becomes more likely that you will experience or witness cyberbullying.

Cyberbullying can be an extension of traditional bullying.

It is used to continue bullying that may have already be happening at school or in your community.

It is rare for cyberbullying to be the only form of bullying that young people experience.

Just 1% of young people report only being bullied online.

Bullying can be described as repetitive, malicious behaviour that tries to establish dominance over a person or group of people.

Cyberbullying can include discrimination or hate crimes.

This is when certain groups are targeted because of their gender identity, race, disability, special educational need, or sexual orientation.

Cyberbullying can come in many forms. Some examples are: threatening someone to make them feel scared, harassing someone by repeatedly sending them messages, ruining somebody's reputation, and excluding someone from a group.

So is cyberbullying a crime? And this is information from Childnet.

Bullying or cyberbullying is not a specific criminal offence in the UK at the moment.

However, harassment, malicious communications, stalking, threatening violence, and incitement are all crimes.

So the consequences of bullying.

What I want you to do is consider these questions.

What do you think are the consequences for the person being bullied? And what do you think the consequences might be for the bully? So pause the video and take some time to reflect on those two questions.

For this next activity, I'd like you to find a piece of paper.

So hopefully you've got some paper with you now, but if not, you can go and find some, or maybe you could neatly take some out of your notebook if you're working in a notebook, but just pause the video and just make sure you've got a piece of paper and then come back.

Brilliant.

So with your piece of paper, what I want you to do is I want you to crumple it up into a tight ball.

So really, really tightly crumple up that ball, so it's tight as it possibly can.

And now if you're able to, you can stomp on that ball as well, so you can stand up and stomp on that ball with your foot, or you could slam it down if you can, on your desk that you're working on, or your sofa or wherever you are, okay, and really try and destroy it as much as you can by scrunching it up as much as possible.

Now, what I want you to do, say some nasty things to your ball.

So, aren't you a stupid piece of paper? Aren't you horrible? Aren't you a nasty piece of paper? I don't like you at all, those sorts of things.

So say some nasty things to your scrunched-up piece of paper.

All right, you done it? Right, now what I want you to do is apologise to your ball.

So, I'm really sorry, piece of paper.

I didn't mean to crumple you up.

I didn't mean to call you nasty things.

Now, open it up again, see if you can fix it.

See if those, see if that apology can fix your piece of paper.

Let's just have a look.

Do you think that your apology can actually fix this piece of paper? Do you think this piece of paper will ever be the same again? Well, this is what actually happens to your words.

If you use nasty words to other people and you bully other people, you can leave scars.

So that perfect person, maybe starting school, all happy and full of hope, goes to school and feels these words, and it can imprint on them and it can affect them for their whole lives, these nasty comments and these nasty things that were said to them.

And yes, you can apologise, and it's always a good thing to do, to apologise to people, but no amount of apology can get rid of those nasty words.

And what we should be trying to do is to uplift other people and say kind things to other people instead of nasty things.

'Cause we're all here in this world together, and we need to be nice to each other.

So think about next time, if you tend to just say something nasty to someone else or do something nasty, think about the imprint that that could leave on that person for the rest of their lives.

Another form of cyberbullying might be stealing someone's identity.

A cyberbully could pretend to be your friend from school in order to make contact with you.

They could also pretend to be you and write hurtful things online, in your name.

Here's a scenario for you.

You are playing a game online and see a friend request pop up.

You recognise the name of the gamer as a friend from school.

What do you do? How do you know that this is your friend from school? Pause the video and have a think about that.

Now you can't always trust that that friend request is definitely that person that you know from school or from any other social situation that you're in, so any communities that you were in, or maybe someone that you go swimming with or play basketball with, that kind of thing.

You don't know until you're actually speaking to that person.

So just to get in that friend request and just accepting it is a little bit risky.

So there are ways to sort of limit that risk.

And one way is to ask the person in the non-digital world, when you see them next, you could ask them.

That's one way, that's probably the safest way.

Another way is to get your parent or carer to text message or email their parent, and try to find out if they had sent the friend request.

Another way is if you've got a friend already online and they're already friends with that person, you could just double check that it is definitely the same gamer tag or user name that they are using.

So there are ways to check.

And the advice really is, don't just accept any friend requests.

If you think it's someone you know, make sure you really check that it's definitely someone you know.

Because people can go online and pretend to be somebody else and use this to put you at risk, and this is not a good situation to be in, so always make sure that you check.

Now, you might have heard this before.

STOP STOP.

And this is a really good way to tell if you think you or somebody else is being bullied.

So we use "STOP STOP," because it stands for Several Times On Purpose, Start Telling Other People.

So if something happens to you, it's been quite nasty and it's happening several times, and it's definitely on purpose, then it's most likely bullying or cyberbullying.

And in that situation, you need to start getting help.

And to get help, you can talk to Childline.

You can speak to a teacher.

You can speak to a trusted adult.

You can also report things on the online community.

A lot of social platforms now, and gaming platforms, they have report buttons where you can report users for being nasty.

So you can do that there.

And also find out about your school's anti-bullying policy.

And if you're not in a situation where you can be at school at the moment, then most schools have on their website their anti-bullying policy for you to go and have a look at.

And that will give you all sorts of advice about what to do if you think you're being bullied.

What I'd like you to do now then, is make an anti-bullying poster.

So design an anti-bullying poster for your classroom.

So think about what we've learned today in this lesson and put that into a poster.

And I want you to pause the video while you do that.

Brilliant.

I hope you've enjoyed making your poster.

And I hope you've learned something about cyberbullying in this lesson and the effects of cyberbullying, too.

If you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #learnwithOak.

'Cause we'd really love to see those anti-bullying posters that you have designed in this lesson.

I'll see you soon.