Safe on Social Presentations by Kirra Pendergast

On Tuesday 4 June, Kirra Pendergast, CEO of Safe on Social, delivered an insightful presentation to our Years 9 and 12 students. Drawing on her extensive expertise in online safety, Kirra addressed the latest challenges in a digital world. She provided recent case studies to illustrate the potential dangers of the online world.

Her presentations covered pressing issues, such as deep fakes, the use of photos online, group chats, online grooming through platforms like Roblox, sextortion and the impact of generative AI.

Student feedback shows that the sessions were valuable and students took away new information.

“The Safe on Social presentation brought me some more awareness around the dangers of social media and taught me how to be safe and make good choices online. Something that shocked me was how easily people can trick young kids into doing something bad online by lying about who they are.”

“It was informative. It surprised me how easy it is for people to make deepfakes using your face and blackmailing you for money.”

“This week, the Year 9 cohort had the opportunity to delve into the importance of being ‘safe on social media’. We learned the importance of being vigilant about activities occurring on various platforms and were informed on ways that we young people can act to be safer on social media. This included restricted phone accessibility during night hours and how to minimise our digital footprint. The presentation covered some examples of young people who unknowingly shared information about themselves and the consequences of this. Kirra also covered some of the legal issues surrounding social media and recent political discussions regarding raising the age for young people to access various social media platforms. The Year 9s were very engaged in the presentation.”

Kirra also presented to a captivated audience of parents on Tuesday evening, offering valuable tips and strategies to help create a safer and more positive online environment for their children.

For parents wanting more support on social media and cyber safely, don’t forget to visit Safe On Social for free resources – link below.

Sign up with an email address to access these free resources. We encourage parents to subscribe to the Safe on Social newsletters for the latest information.

We continue to work on educating students around online safety, through experiences such as these presentations, Encounter Days, curriculum in Social Emotional Learning (SEL) lessons at Years 7 to 9 and within Student Advocate time at St Mary’s.

Mrs Alana Burket, Social Emotional Learning Leader