Classes in online dangers

Thousands of South Lanarkshire pupils have learned about online dangers.

The details emerged at a South Lanarkshire Council meeting last week, and training has been provided to parents and carers as well.

The service has been used by 263 parents and guardians, 619 primary pupils and 4690 secondary school pupils, and has provided knowledge of the dangers that can occur online.

Councillor Bert Thomson said: “Safety online is a big thing, it’s a big concern for a lot of people, it’s something we’ve got to keep an eye on to protect children.”

The news came as councillors praised a recent report on equality and diversity in education.

Elected members welcomed the new report at the Equal Opportunities Forum on Thursday, November 24, which outlines ways equality and diversity are improving within the education sector across the region.

Councillor Mary Donnelly said:“I welcome the report, it’s amazing. If we didn’t have communities out there that tied in with the education world, we wouldn’t see all these benefits.”

The report outlined a range of successes within the education sector, including counselling which has been used by 452 children across 43 schools.

The counselling service, which is available 24 hours a day as one-to-one support for children and young people over the age of ten, was deemed successful, and 65 percent of those who used it reported an improvement.

Support for autistic children and teenagers has been outlined in the report, and a variety of National Autistic Society training courses have taken place for a range of staff.

Every locality now has staff trained in Early Bird, Early Bird+ and Teen Life courses through the National Autistic Society and have a new set of resources.

Councillor Katy Loudon said:“The work is so deeply appreciated.”

There has also been literacy and numeracy course for adults, and these were used by 101 people who improved their literacy skills and 47 adults who improved numeracy skills.

Other notable successes from the report include outreach programmes which occurred during lockdown, support for improving language barriers for speakers of other languages, emergency childcare for key workers and educational support for gypsy traveller groups.

Councillor Eric Holford said:“There’s some really good stuff in here, I think as a council we do really excel in a lot of things covered.”