A Place of Safety by Gripping Yarns

On Monday 1st February Classes 2, 3 and 4 received a visit from Gripping Yarns, an association of storytelling performers who are all actors with an expertise in theatre for young people. They delivered a story called 'Place of Safety' to support our work on internet safety and link to Safer Internet Day on 9th February.

The internet, mobile communications and e-mail offer young people unprecedented and exciting  opportunities to explore and interact from the safety of their own school, home or bedroom. 'A Place of Safety' is concerned with how children interact in  the electronic communication environment, and with how they  can do so with greater security.

 

Place of Safety tells the story of Jordan, who is struggling to build new friendships after moving school following a necessary family separation.  For Jordan, the internet, e-mail, chat and messaging offer an ideal way to keep in touch with old friends, and make new friends with interests similar to his own.  He is befriended by an apparently more experienced chat room user, with whom he develops a friendship, and with whom he shares personal information and photographs.  His trust in his new friend diminishes as he is pressured to allow greater degrees of contact and more personal information.  Having already taken risks with his online friendship, he is too scared to tell anyone what has happened in case he gets into trouble and he is considering agreeing to his new friend’s requests when a real-life friend from school uses online media to contact him, and encourage him get help from their teacher. 

Place of Safety was written for Cheshire Education Safeguarding in Education to promote safe use of the Internet and electronic communications media, encouraging children adopt an attitude of healthy scepticism towards what people tell them online, whilst stressing that using the Internet can and should be great fun.