Online problems on the line

Before you begin 

• Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Additional help to carry out your risk assessment, including examples can be found here. Don’t forget to make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely. 
• Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help if you’re short on helpers 

Play the game 

1. Gather everyone in a group and ask everyone to think of which online issues matter to them the most. Choose a few people to answer.
2. Explain to everyone that they’ll need to decide where different online issues fit along a line, going from low risk to high risk. You could create a line on a big piece of paper, along a wall or on the floor. It could be drawn, a rope, spots, chalk or something else. You could also use a washing line, so everyone could clip ideas to it, or have people to represent each issue and ask them to put themselves in order. 
3. Read out the list of different risks to the group and make sure everyone understands each of the online issues. You could work as a group to define of any terms they’re unsure of.  
4. Next ask everyone to take one, or work in pairs depending on the number of people. Everyone should begin to rank the issues from those that pose the highest to lowest risk for children and young people their age. If you’ve got a large group, you could split people into smaller groups and make more lines for them to use.
5. Once finished, come back together and discuss their choices as a group. If there are multiple groups and lines, you could compare how different the answers might be and way.
6. They could then rank the issues from those they see the most often to those they see the least.
7. If you’re working in small teams, you could do it as a race, but remember, there are no right or wrong answers!
8. You could rank them in other ways, such as:

• What I have the most to least confidence in handling
• What I need most to least help with the most
• What I find most to least annoying

     

Once you've finished

1. Once finished, you could chat through what people should do if they encounter each scenario.
2. Take a look at our online safety tips for all sections. You may want to share this with parents and carers for their young people after the session.
3. You can also find advice on Childline’s Staying Safe Online website, BBC Own It and the NSPCC’s Keeping children safe online website.
4. You may want to share links or advice with parents and carers for their young people after the session.