Home / Stops 3–4

Stop 3 · Tech hunt · 3–8 min

What’s in your space?A tech hunt that informs a tech plan

Before we look at any classroom, look at a space you know well. Draw it, or tap to add stickers of the technology that lives there. On paper? Use the drawing sheet in your table kit.

Start drawing From hunt to tech plan
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Draw your space

Draw it, or tap to add

Choose a space. Draw with your finger or mouse, tap a sticker to add it, then drag stickers where they belong. Each space keeps its own drawing.

Your tech hunt drawing

Tap to add

What your drawing tells us

Add some stickers to see what your space can do.

Stickers are generous guesses: a tablet can watch and connect, even if yours mostly plays songs. Counts come from stickers, not freehand drawings, across all spaces. They are prompts for adult checking, not verified device capabilities; the same qualification appears on your audit download.

Seen as an adult

Starting with adults’ own spaces does two jobs: it shows that technology is already part of every child’s day, at home and in friends’ houses, and it puts educators in the same noticing seat we ask of children. The same hunt, with real objects and a “not sure” basket, is the first stop in Dilon Lesson 1.

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Stop 4 · From hunt to tech plan · 8–11 min

What we find shapes what we plan

A tech hunt isn’t only a lesson for children. What turns up in children’s spaces informs part of our tech plan and our safeguarding policy: where devices live, who is nearby, what they hear and see, and what children and families need to know.

Where does it live?Every device in our hunt needs a home.Plan line: every device has a labelled home and a routine for going back, with a station children can see.
Who uses it, and with whom?Hands, ages and grown-ups.Plan line: children use devices with an adult nearby; two gentle hands; “not sure? grab a grown-up”.
Does it listen, watch or connect?Speakers, cameras, talking toys, tablets.Plan line: adults check what each device collects and where it sends it, before it reaches children. Photos follow media consent; faces stay off anything that leaves the room.
What do children need to know?The lesson, at their stage.Plan line: age-specific lessons from Nest to Year 2, carried by a character and repeated through play.
What do families need to know?Home is where most tech lives.Plan line: bilingual family notes, and short sessions on things like AI toys and what never to share.
Children notice

They find, sort and name the technology around them. That noticing is the lesson.

Adults decide

Which devices come in, what they collect and how they are supervised stays with adults and school review.

Families join in

The same questions go home, in home languages, so the hunt keeps going after school.

Seen as an adult

Keep adults responsible for tool decisions, and give children meaningful participation without making them responsible for managing system risks (UNICEF, 2025). Children’s rights to privacy, protection and participation apply online too (UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2021). At DCB this Early Years work is one strand of a whole-college approach to digital safety; the route from borrowed lessons to an owned policy is shared in the companion workshop, E-Safety: Zero to Hero.

UNICEF (2025) · UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (2021) · NAEYC & Fred Rogers Center (2012) · all sources

Next: inside Dilon’s classroomThe latest episode in Nest and Reception. Your auditYour hunt counts appear on the PDF. Printable drawing sheetIn the table kit.
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Before you take photos or bring devices in

Safeguards, data and consent

Most of this already lives in your school’s policies. Here is what stays fixed in this approach, and what to settle with your safeguarding lead before you start.

Always, in this approach

  • No chatbots, AI apps or AI toys with children, and no child accounts.
  • Adults check devices first: what each one records and where it sends it, before it reaches children.
  • School permissions and family consent come first. A child’s “Is this okay to share?” is their voice, not consent.
  • Hands, materials and work in photos. Check names on work, badges, voices and context too; no faces does not guarantee anonymity. Follow school permissions before anything goes home.
  • Every child can take part. Check what each family has opted out of. Offer drawing, sequencing, storytelling or observation with equal status. A photographer role is appropriate only when it fits that family’s permissions.
  • The character stays openly pretend. It never asks children to keep a secret, and adults don’t use its feelings to get children to do things.

Decide with your safeguarding lead

  • Which devices take photos, and where photos are stored. School devices and school storage only; personal phones and personal cloud sync off.
  • When photos are deleted from the device, and from storage.
  • Who prints, and where printed photos go: the child’s folder, the wall, home.
  • What families are asked, for example not to post photos that include other children.
  • How a worry is passed on. Talk about home devices can bring up something worrying, such as what a child has seen or someone they talk to online. Listen, don’t investigate, write down the child’s words exactly and tell your designated safeguarding lead the same day, following your school’s procedure.
  • Which policies this sits under: safeguarding, media consent, acceptable use and data protection, alongside local law.

Children’s rights to privacy, protection and participation apply online too: UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (2021) · UNICEF (2025) · Kurian (2024) · all sources

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