A CLEVER app to promote internet safety not only won £150 for Haslingden High School, but also students are going to make sure it becomes a reality.
A team from the Student Council entered the Lancashire County Council’s Chairman’s Challenge competition.
They had to come up with a unique idea and as all students in the high school have iPads they decided e-safety was a good choice.
Around 20 students formed groups to develop different sections of the app and they also recorded videos to help explain how it works.
Caitlin Abbott, 14, from Year 9, Tarek Ahmed 13, from Year 8 and Lilli Kelleher, 14, from Year 9 then attended the final at County Hall in Preston where they presented the e-Safety App to a panel of judges.
Caitlin said: “As soon as we came up with the idea we knew what we wanted it to and so we split up into five or six groups and each had a topic, one did design and others the various pages and the icon.”
Lilli said: “We wanted to make sure we delivered a good safety message that was accessible for students, parents and staff with different pages.
“We also wanted the app to be able to be used by students if they wanted to discuss e-safety with prefects.”
Tarek added: “We want to see this developed properly so it can be offered for new Year 7s when they start at school.”
They competed against 17 finalists from Lancashire and the Haslingden High School team got third place winning them £150 for the school.
The annual competition from LCC encourages schools, children’s centres, pupils and families to come up with innovative ideas to improve their school or local area.
The themes for the Chairman’s Challenge are based on the ‘Five ways to wellbeing’, which focus on the following areas: Connect with others, be active, take notice of things around you, keep learning and give to others.
County Councillor Margaret Brindle, Chairman of the county council, said: “It was a pleasure to welcome each of these schools to County Hall. The wide range of activities carried out for the Chairman’s Challenge made it difficult for the judges to choose this year’s winners.
“The Chairman’s Challenge encourages children and young people to develop creative and innovative ways to encourage their friends and families to make positive lifestyle choices.”
Caitlin added: “We would like to develop the app to such a standard that it will be good enough to be able to be distributed to other schools who also use iPads.”