Tootoot!

St Matthew’s RC Primary School in Walton officially launched the anti-bullying and safeguarding app tootoot education to their pupils for Safer Internet Day.

Tootoot education is an online anti-bullying and safeguarding platform and app that allows pupils to speak about any concerns or issues they have directly to their place of learning.

St Matthew’s RC Primary already has an excellent anti-bullying system in place with eCadets and pupil mentors. For Safer Internet Day, both eCadets and pupil mentors were trained on online safety and anti-bullying practices and shown how to use tootoot to report bullying anonymously.

Fully trained, they will now be able to guide fellow pupils on anti-cyberbullying practices and show classmates how to report any safeguarding issues through the app.

In recent years cyberbullying and online abuse has hit headlines with stories of devastating impact on the lives of those involved.

In a recent survey conducted by Bullying UK 56% of young people said they have seen others being bullied online and 42% of young people said they have felt unsafe online.

Mrs Grier, St Matthew’s RC Primary School pastoral care manager and deputy safeguarding lead said: “Thankfully we haven’t had any specific incidents of cyberbullying at our school although we have had a few friendship issues on social media in the past, our usual approach would be to ask parents to print off the evidence and send it in.

“Tootoot provides a way for pupils and parents to report any concerns they have in a simple and confidential way, it also allows our pupils to attach evidence such as screen grabs or photos when anonymously reporting through the app – helping us to quickly and effectively resolve issues such as online friendship issues or cyberbullying.

“We’ve been using tootoot as an incident recording tool for teachers which is what initially attracted us to it, but from now on we’ll also be encouraging pupils to use the anonymous reporting feature through the app and online.”