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Disconnect to Reconnect

Disconnect to Reconnect is a campaign that has been spearheaded by Birchwood School and we are proud to pledge our commitment to this worthwhile cause. The campaign is around raising awareness of the impact of social media and smartphones on children and young people. This is a rising concern due to the prevalence of smartphones and devices, which are increasingly exposing children to various risks, such as inappropriate content, excessive screen time and other significant safeguarding issues. Research shows that social media has a significant role in the impact of the national mental health crisis. One aspect of the campaign is highlighting potential solutions to families enabling you to tackle these issues and support, including the Parent Shield network, Qustodio and Ontaro app. These resources offer tools and support to help parents monitor and manage their children's online activities, ensuring a safer and healthier digital environment for our families. Most issues that occur due to phones/social media happens outside of school time which is why the campaigns to work together to support the young people in Warrington focusing on the importance of safeguarding our children's future by promoting responsible and balanced technology use.

The Parent Shield network is aimed at children who are 13 and below and do not have social media. You order the SIM card and it will work in any phone. This network offer you complete control over your child’s phone – it records all calls and messages for 6 months so you can access them if you need to, it allows you to block the phone from working during school hours and whenever you want the phone to be off for the night, it allows you to block websites and stop apps being put on to the phone, it has word alerts if something worrying is typed or received – and much more. Only the parent account can add contacts to the phone. All of the packages have two safe numbers that are always free no matter how many minutes or messages they have left which is great for them staying in touch with you. The package that is £9.99 a month with 250 minutes and 250 messages – it deliberately has no data as ‘unlimited data is unlimited risk’. They can have pay as you go data that you can very much control and set too. More information can be found here:

The Ontaro app is aimed at older children, those who have social media. It is an app that is added to your child’s phone that you set up and it feeds through to a dashboard on your phone. It is an AI based app that reads all of their activity across all apps on the phone and alerts you when something concerning comes up – not only does it alert you but it offers advice and guidance on what to do next. For instance, if your child is googling about dieting, then it would make you aware. This allows your child to start to navigate the online world more but with you holding their hand and ensuring they are safe. The Ontaro app should be £100 a year but we have a discount code that you can use that offers you 6 months free and half price after that. The code is WBS6MF50D – be aware that this app currently only works on Android phones. More information can be found here:

For children who use IOS and have social media, then the Qustodio app can be a great option. It has web filtering and blocking, apps blocking and time limits, social media limits, restricted times, calls and SMS monitoring, location tracking and much more. The basic package to go on one device is free – but you can pay for packages with more safety measures and that can go on numerous devices including laptops, iPADs etc. More information can be found here:

Disconnect to Reconnect are also asking Warrington parents to Pledge to Protect, requesting as many of you as possible to pledge that your child won’t have access to social media until they are 13 and pledge to have parental controls on your child’s phone until 16. There is no commission or incentive for the campaign, and there are many more alternatives on the market – the campaign is just highlighting the type of things that are out there. Please click to pledge or follow the campaign here. Your participation and engagement would be appreciated so we can ensure that we are giving our children every chance and every support that they need to have a happy and healthy future.