Laying the Foundation for Digital Citizenship: The Integration of ‘The CyberSmart Squad’ into a Pre-School Curriculum

Ensuring the safety and well-being of young children in online environments has emerged as a critical priority. This paper introduces a cybersafety curriculum for pre-school learners through The CyberSmart Squad, a group of animated characters based on the Big Five in South Africa. The overarching focus of The Cybersmart Squad is that learners should use ‘superpowers’ of Courage, Kindness, Safety, Respect and Honesty whether on the ‘real-life playground’ or in the ‘digital playground’. The competencies of Digital Citizenship Identity, Cyberbullying Management, Critical Thinking and Digital Empathy are encouraged through this cybersafety curriculum. This paper introduces The CyberSmart Squad curriculum, and related content, and uses the spiral curriculum approach to integrate cybersafety topics into the pre-school curriculum in South Africa. By empowering young children with essential cybersafety skills from an early age, this curriculum aims to contribute to building a foundation for lifelong digital citizenship in an increasingly digital world.