Media Navigated for Primary
Navigate the digital world with confidence
Media Navigator - Helping Young People To Prepare To Thrive Online The world has changed. Our teaching needs to catch up. Technology is integrated into our everyday life and children do not know a world without information at their fingertips, literally. The way we engage with media, including social media platforms, is evolving at great pace and it's important that we engage and teach children to access, analyse, and create media in the context of their lived experience. Media Navigator is a series of six lessons designed to build media literacy in a way that children recognise the similarities and differences between the online world and the physical world.
Modules and lessons
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Browse modules in order, then open any lesson for its summary, learning outcomes, and supporting resources.
Media Navigated for Primary
Young people have never known a world without social media — navigating algorithms, influencers and fake news daily, often without the tools to do it safely or confidently. Media Navigator gives them those tools. A six-lesson programme for KS2 that delivers statutory requirements that builds critical media literacy alongside emotional resilience — so pupils don't just survive the online world, they understand it. Questions what they see, not just consume it Separates the curated online world from real life. Connects digital behaviour to wellbeing and real relationships. Fake news travels six times faster than the truth. Comparison culture is at an all-time high. Media Navigator equips pupils to pause, think, and choose. Developed from Bounce Forward Healthy Minds suite — evidence-based and designed for real life.
Media Navigator: Introduction to Media Literacy and Social Media Primary
This opening lesson sets the stage for the Media Navigated curriculum by introducing students to the concept of media literacy and examining the role social media plays in their lives. Students explore what it means to be a critical and informed media consumer in the modern digital landscape.
Media Navigator: Fantasy and Reality Primary
Students investigate the gap between curated online personas and real life. This lesson explores how social media often presents an idealised version of reality and helps students develop the critical thinking skills to distinguish between fantasy and reality in digital content.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Platforms Primary
A balanced and nuanced exploration of social media's benefits and drawbacks. Students critically examine both the positive opportunities and the potential harms of different social platforms, building the knowledge base to make more informed choices about their own digital engagement.
Benefits of Social Platforms Primary
Diving deeper into the positive side of social media, this lesson helps students recognise and leverage the genuine benefits of digital platforms — from building communities and accessing information to creative expression and social activism. Students learn how to use platforms intentionally and positively.
Creating Identity Maps Primary
Students engage in a creative and reflective activity to map their online and offline identities. This lesson helps young people understand how their sense of self is constructed and how their digital presence relates to (and sometimes differs from) their authentic identity.
Presenting Online Identity Maps Primary
The culminating lesson of the Media Navigated course, where students present and share their identity maps. This collaborative session allows students to discuss their digital identities, learn from each other's perspectives, and consolidate their media literacy skills.
About the organisation
Bounce Forward
Bounce Forward is a registered charity on a mission to transform how we think about mental health, shifting the narrative from deficit and crisis to strength, prevention, and psychological fitness. They create evidence-based programmes, curricula, and training that give young people, school staff, and the adults around children the knowledge, language, and daily habits to build genuine mental resilience. From whole-staff training to five-year school curricula, everything they do is practical, grounded in science, and designed to make a lasting difference not just in the moment, but across a lifetime.