The break-out stars of ITV’s Loose Women, Nadia Sawalha and Kaye Adams, visited Queenswood on 21 June to talk about a fascinating and extremely timely book they have written with international security expert Will Geddes.

The project was inspired when Nadia learned about the Snap Map feature of Snapchat, which allows ‘friends’ to track your location in real time and is notoriously difficult to deactivate. The Facebook video that she posted with her daughter went viral, with over 28 million views to date.

Realising that Snap Map was just the tip of the iceberg, Nadia and Kaye decided to become better informed about the myriad online dangers facing teenagers, and teamed up with Will to produce the go-to guide to keeping children safe in the digital world.

The event, held in the Clarissa Farr Theatre with an audience of parents, girls, staff and friends of the school, was a real eye-opener. With their trademark warm charisma and good humour, Nadia and Kaye shared their own parenting experiences and encouraged audience members to share theirs. Will gave us fleeting insights into his day job as a security consultant to the rich and famous, and offered a wealth of practical advice, including covering laptop webcams with stickers, implementing two factor authentification whenever possible, and experimenting with greyscale displays on smartphones.

We are hugely grateful to Nadia, Kaye and Will, to Nicola Ibison, and to Fran Gizauskas from DK Books, for giving up their valuable time to make this event possible. The book, Parent Alert! How to Keep Your Kids Safe Online, is published on 19 July 2018.