On Wednesday 4 September, our Years 4-6 and Years 9-10 students were privileged to listen to Mr Paul Litherland, owner of Surf Online Safe. Mr Litherland is an ex-WA Police Officer, with several years’ experience involved in the Technology Crime Investigation Unit. With his special skills Mr Litherland has turned his attention to educating our students to give them knowledge and insight into the dangers of the online world and what they can do to protect themselves.
Mr Litherland’s presentations are always engaging and eye-opening for our students, here’s what they had to say:
“My favourite part of the cyber safety presentation was that he could find 48 people on snapchat from our school and 2 TikToks. It showed that even though people might have their account on private with the right tools you still can hack into someone’s account and find out their school, address and share photos that might not want to be shared. There was many different parts of the presentation that was interesting.”
Abi, Year 7
“Paul Litherland’s presentation was both informative and engaging as he talked about the dangers of the online world. He told us several statistics about the usage of online platforms for 12-17 year-olds. Paul Litherland made us aware of the risks of social media such as Snapchat and Instagram in our day to day lives.”
Allie and April , Year 8
“I found Paul’s presentation very informative and engaging as well as shocking. He talked to the Years 9 and 10 students about how to keep our information private on social media, the rise of AI and real-life cases he has dealt with while working to protect youth online. After the session, I believe I am more informed about choices I make on social media and other online platforms as well as the protections I must put in place to keep myself safe in these spaces. Overall, I always find presentations from Paul helpful.”
Lila, Year 10
“Paul Litherland came and spoke to the Secondary students and the Year 4 to 6 students about Cyber safety and scams in online gaming. He started off with his usual joke, “Son, son come here I can’t get the laptop to stop beeping. Dad that’s the microwave you idiot!” He then showed us the statistics about how many people in each age category have social media many years ago to right now. We then talked about online scams and things that have happened because of scams. He talked about a huge scam that happened in London where they created a website where you could get free Vbucks and how they stole the credit card information and used it to get money. Everyone really enjoyed listening to his stories and all the information. We can’t wait to see him again next year and learn even more!”
Keira, Year 6 Primary Hale Captain
