Online Safety

Curriculum Launch

Google and the Western Cape Education Department have partnered to integrate an Online Safety Curriculum Guideline into the Life Orientation subject for Grade 8 – 12. The Curriculum Guide is an interactive resource that allows both teachers and learners to learn about online safety. The guideline is compliant with the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) and can be linked to other subjects such as Information Technology (IT) and Computer Application Technology (CAT).

Learners are taken on a learning journey exploring topics such as:

Personal safety online,
Cyberbullying,
Selfies and
Inappropriate content
Positive and negative impacts of social media
And much more…

The Curriculum Guide seeks to encourage learners to become responsible digital citizens and be future ready.

Grade 8 Be Safe

Learning about personal privacy and safety online

Grade 9 Be Respectful

Learning about communicating digitally and being respectful

Grade 10 Be Smart

Learning about the Internet and WWW, to be smart online

Grade 11 Be Responsible

Producing dynamic content, making a career of their creativity

Grade 12 Be Future Ready

Digitising their collections and making them accessible to all

Acknowledgments

The Online Safety Curriculum Guideline was developed in partnership with Google, the Western Cape Education Department and Karen Walstra Consulting in 2019 for Grade 8 – 12 learners. This was borne out of the success of the Web Rangers programme in the province.

To develop this Curriculum Guideline we had several workshops and a pilot in two districts in the province to ensure that the Curriculum Guideline is relevant to South Africa and learning needs. The Curriculum Guideline is meant to be included in the Life Orientation subject as part of existing lessons. This is the first online safety curriculum formally launched in schools in South Africa and the Western Cape is the first province in the country to adopt the curriculum guideline.
Ensuring that learners, teachers and parents are educated and have the necessary information to keep themselves safe online is a priority and a responsibility that we all share.