Q3 Academy Tipton

Q3 Academy
Tipton

E-Safety

At Q3 Academy we encourage all students to be safe whilst using online platforms. Below are a list of guidelines to help you navigate social media sites to ensure you are protecting yourself and others.

Snap Chat

Safety Tools

There is information on safety in Snapchat’s safety centre.

Snapchat also has guidance for parents. It explains why young people might like Snapchat, how it works, and how to avail the safety tools available.

Privacy Policies

https://www.snapchat.com/privacy

Snapchat have community guidelines that outline what type of content is acceptable and unacceptable to snap. It explains that is not OK to snap the following:

  • Pornography
  • Nudity or sexual content involving minors
  • Invasions of privacy
  • Threats
  • Harassment
  • Impersonation

Age Requirement

To be eligible to sign up for Snapchat, you must be at least 13 years old.

TikTok

 

TikTok offers several online safety tools for parents, including Family Pairing, content filtering, and screen time management features to help ensure a safer experience for teens.

Safety Tools

  1. Family Pairing: This feature allows parents to link their TikTok account with their teen's account. Through Family Pairing, parents can manage various settings, including:

Screen Time Management: Set daily screen time limits to help teens balance their app usage.
Content Preferences: Control the type of content that appears in the For You feed by enabling Restricted Mode, which limits exposure to mature themes.
Privacy Settings: Adjust privacy settings to limit who can view their teen's content and who can send them messages.

  1. Content Filtering: TikTok employs a system called Content Levels to prevent content with mature themes from reaching younger users. Parents can help their teens customize their content preferences to filter out unwanted material.
  2. Screen Time and Well-being Tools: TikTok provides tools to help manage screen time, including reminders to take breaks and features that encourage healthy usage patterns. For users under 18, TikTok has introduced a Sleep Hours feature that activates after 10 PM, promoting better sleep hygiene.
  3. Guidance and Resources: TikTok encourages parents to engage in open conversations with their teens about online safety. The platform provides resources and guides to help parents understand the app and its features, fostering a collaborative approach to digital citizenship.
  4. Reporting and Account Management: Parents can report inappropriate content or behaviour and manage their child's account settings, including the ability to delete accounts for children under 13.

By utilizing these tools, parents can play an active role in their teen's TikTok experience, ensuring a safer and more enjoyable environment while promoting healthy online habits. For more detailed information, parents can visit TikTok's official safety resources and guides.

Instagram

 

There is information on safety in Instagram’s Help Centre.

Instagram also has advice for parents. This advice explains what Instagram is, as well as how it works. It also offers key safety advice.

Safety Tools

You can find out more about Instagram’s safety features in the Help Centre. This includes:

  • Blocking: When people use the blocking feature, the person they block can’t view their posts or search for their Instagram account.
  • Reporting a Post: You can report inappropriate posts, comments or people by using the built-in reporting features in the app.
  • Deleting or Reporting Comments: You can flag or delete a comment as abuse or spam by swiping left on it.
  • Privacy Settings: You can adjust your privacy settings to make your account private. This means that anyone who wants to see your photos or videos, followers, or following lists will have to send you a follow request for you to approve or ignore.
  • Location settings: Users choose when they share location on each post, this can also be edited at a later date
  • Tips for Parents: Instagram have created a page with some FAQs that parents may have about the site

Age Requirement

To be eligible to sign up for Instagram, you must be at least 13 years old.

Threads

 

Users of Threads have access to several safety tools and controls. These are the same tools that you’ll find on Instagram.

Safety Tools

Parental controls and supervision

'Supervision' is a feature which links a parent’s account to their child’s. It’s designed to give parents more insight into how their child uses Threads and offers a range of parental controls.

  • Via this tool you can view the time your child has spent on Threads, as well as any their new followers and any profiles they’ve blocked.
  • Parents can also set daily time limits for Threads and can schedule breaks for specific times of the day – like during school hours, or late in the evening.

Blocking and reporting

You can unfollow, block, and make a report by tapping the three dots next to another’s profile or post. Any accounts which you’ve previously blocked on Instagram will automatically be blocked on Threads.

  • Hidden words: Threads allow users to set up a list of ‘hidden words’. Once toggled on any replies or posts containing these words will automatically be hidden from your feed.
  • You can filter out a pre-existing set of offensive words, phrases, or emojis. Alternatively, you can set up a custom list of words and phrases to be hidden from your feed.

Privacy

To switch your profile to private simply go into the ‘Privacy’ section of your account settings. Once done, all new followers will need to be approved, and only your followers will be able to see your posts and replies.

  • Threads also let users choose who can mention them in their posts, replies, or bio. You can set this to ‘everyone’, ‘profiles you follow’, or ‘no one’. These settings are accessed by going into ‘Privacy’, and then ‘Mentions’.

Age Requirement

To be eligible to sign up for Discord, you must be at least 13 years old

WhatsApp


Safety Tools

  • Privacy settings: Normally if you know someone’s phone number, it can be easy to find out if they are on WhatsApp or not. To control who can find your profile picture and your status, or when you were last online, there are privacy settings that can be adjusted so either ‘everyone’ on WhatsApp can see your profile picture, just ‘your contacts’ which are the contacts in your phone book, or nobody.
  • Blocking: You can block specific contacts from interacting with you on WhatsApp. If you block someone, they can no longer send you a message, however you will need to delete someone as a contact in your phone book if you want them not to see your profile on WhatsApp. As each phone is different, you can learn how you can block people on WhatsApp on different phone networks.
  • Reporting: You can report content to WhatsApp, although they state it is better to go to law enforcement if you believe your safety, or someone else’s safety is at risk. It is important to screenshot the offending text/picture/video and to provide as much information as possible to WhatsApp as they won’t be able to see the message otherwise.
  • Spam: Should you receive a message from an unknown number, you will be immediately asked if you know this contact or if you would like to report it as spam.

There is information on staying safe on WhatsApp on its FAQ page.

Age Requirement

To be eligible to sign up for WhatsApp, you must be at least 13 years old

X (Twitter)

Twitter has advice in the Help Centre. Twitter has a range of safety features. For more information visit support.twitter.com.

Safety Tools

Block: Use the block function to stop a user from following you, tagging you in photos or accessing your tweets. Any @replies or mentions from a Blocked user will not appear in your mentions tab (although these Tweets may still appear in search)

Reporting: Click on the in-Tweet reporting button or fill out the online forms on Twitter’s support pages (support.twitter.com/forms) to send a message to Twitter’s user support and safety team.

Mute: Hide a user’s tweets from your timeline without blocking them. A red mute icon will appear on their profile, visible only to the user, until they are unmuted.

Protect your tweets: When you sign up for Twitter, you have the option to keep your Tweets public (the default account setting) or to protect your Tweets. To protect your Tweets, go to your Security and Privacy Settings.

Photo tagging: in your privacy settings you can control who can tag you in photos.

Sensitive content: Twitter ask users to mark their Tweets as sensitive if they contain media that might be considered sensitive content such as nudity, violence, or medical procedures. For the viewer, the default setting is that if a Tweet is marked as containing media that might be sensitive, they will be required to click through a warning message before that media is displayed to them.

Age Requirement

To be eligible to sign up for Twitter, you must be at least 13 years old.

Facebook

There are a number of safety tools such as Reporting, Blocking and Privacy Settings. We recommend that parents look through the safety guides from Facebook

Safety Tools

Age Requirement

To be eligible to sign up for Facebook, you must be at least 13 years old.

Discord

 

The latest safety tools—when used together with parental guidance—equip you to build both protection and trust with your child.

Safety Tools

Enable Family Centre

  • Open User Settings → Family Centre.
  • Ask your teen to generate a QR code under their account.
  • Scan it from your Discord app; once accepted, you see weekly summaries of their activity (friends added, servers joined, messages and calls)

Set Sensitive Media Filters

  • Go to User Settings → Privacy & Safety.
  • Choose Keep Me Safe.
  • Under Content & Social, set filters to blur or block for DMs and channel media. Filters are mandatory by default for teens

Enable Spam Filtering

  • In Privacy & Safety, set DM Spam Filter to filter messages from non-friends into a spam inbox

Manage Server-Based Messaging

  • Within Content & Social, navigate to Server Privacy Defaults.
  • Disable Allow direct messages from server members to block unknown senders

Restrict Friend Requests

  • Under Privacy & Safety, choose Friend Request settings.
  • Select Friends of Friends or No One to block requests from strangers

Block or Report Users

  • Right-click a username and choose Block.
  • Use the three-dot menu to report harassment or inappropriate content

Age Requirement

To be eligible to sign up for Discord, you must be at least 13 years old.

Roblox

In 2025 Roblox improved parental controls and safety tools significantly. Follow the steps below to lock things down and keep play positive.

Safety Tools

Enter Your Child’s Real Age
When you create an account, always use your child’s correct date of birth. Roblox uses age to decide what they can see and how strict chat filters are.

  • Under 13 accounts – stronger filters and limited search results
  • 13+ accounts – wider range of games and looser chat rules
  • If a younger child pretends to be older, they may see games and chat that aren’t suitable.

Link Your Parent Account

  • Open Roblox and go to Settings (gear icon)
  • Choose Parental Controls
  • Select “Link Parent Account” and follow the instructions
  • Once linked, children can’t change important safety settings without your permission.

Set Content Ratings

  • All Ages / Minimal – suitable for most children
  • Mild (9+) – may include mild cartoon violence or silliness
  • Moderate (13+) – more intense action or realistic effects
  • Restricted (17+) – only for ID-verified adults
  • For children under 10, it’s sensible to choose All Ages or Mild. You can set this in the Parental Controls menu.

Limit or Turn Off Chat
Chat is the main way strangers can contact your child. Limiting it is the single biggest safety improvement you can make.

  • Go to Settings → Privacy
  • Under chat and messaging options, set:
  • Who can message me? → No one or Friends
  • Who can chat with me in app? → No one or Friends
  • Who can join me? → Friends or No one

Parental/Child Tip: “If you wouldn’t talk to them at school, don’t add them on Roblox.”