The Education Department has taken the precautionary step so that head teachers and senior figures in the department will be alerted if any reference is made to the ‘Blue Whale Challenge’ on any device connected to a school computer network.
The ‘game’ originated on a Russian chat forum and involves participants engaging in conversation with an anonymous ‘curator’ who sets the person a series of challenges over 50 days, culminating in a dare for the player to take their own life.
The challenges begin relatively harmlessly but escalate to requests for the player to self-harm by carving a picture of a whale in their arm.
More than 100 teenage suicides have reportedly been linked to the ‘game’, although no direct evidence has been found.
Police forces in the UK have warned schools about the ‘game’.
An Education spokeswoman said: ‘Reference to the Blue Whale Challenge has been been put on a watch-word list in schools. It will be flagged up with the e-safety reps and head teachers in schools and to the head of governance at the Education Department.’
She stressed that it was a precautionary measure and there was no evidence that children in Jersey had been affected.
