Last week Mrs Johnston spoke on assembly about mobile phone usage of the student body. Our guidelines are structured to change as students get older and to model appropriate use. The aim of these guidelines is to ensure that the girls focus is on the core business of learning and developing healthy relationships within the school community.
Primary School Students Prep - 6
Communication regarding illness, early pick up or emergent situations must be made through Student Services. Mobile phones should not be brought to school, unless arrangements have been made with the Deputy Principal.
Middle School Students Years 7 - 9
Due to an increased amount of unsupervised travel between home and school in the middle years, middle school day students are permitted to bring phones to school under the following circumstances:
Turned off and handed into the office or secured in their locked locker.
·Camps and excursions are considered school days and students are requested to not bring them.
Senior School Students Years 10 -12
Senior students are permitted to carry mobile phones. These must be turned off during lessons, in study times, examinations or when stored in a locker. Mobile phones are not to be used while moving around a campus. This includes the use of headphones and smart watches. It is not appropriate to be using your mobile phone when in a group situation, or in any way that could be deemed to be anti-social.
The eSafety Commissioner’s website offers advice on ways parents can engage with their children, and guide appropriate mobile phone, social media and internet use.
Some advice to parents from Michael Carr-Gregg
1. Make sure that computers are in public places in your home -- not the child's bedroom – this can change when older.
2. When your kids are online, do a little "shoulder surfing" from time to time, just so they know you're watching.
3. Check their social networking site profile regularly
4. Ensure they do not post anything that would make it easy for a stranger to find them, such as phone number, address, school, netball team, IM screen name, or specific whereabouts.
5. Never allow them to meet people in person (they have met online), who they do not fully know, unless accompanied by an adult.
6. They should never post anything online that would embarrass them later, particularly photo or info they wouldn't want their parents, teachers, future boss or landlord to see!
7. Set profiles to private and never ever share your passwords with anyone.
Home and Mobile internet management services
There are many ways you can approach device and internet usage from home. Dependent upon the type internet modem and router you have it may be possible to set up a default layer of filtering of your home internet connection that would restrict access to certain categories of internet traffic. Open DNS is free service offered by CISCO that will filter all traffic based upon your home IP address. (https://www.opendns.com/)
There are a multitude of parental control apps available to monitor and manage screen time and application usage. Google Play store and Apple App Store have many different options that may cater to your needs. Both Mobile platforms have Family sharing capabilities that allows a certain level of control over what apps can be installed on devices.
For those interested in a more granular approach to web filtering and device access there are an increasing number of companies offering a combined platform approach. Cybersafe house and circle offered by Cyberhound is a combination of a physical filtering device for your home and software clients for each device that offer fine grain control and visibility of your family’s internet and app usage. Similarly, Family Zone offers a physical filtering device or Software clients that offer a similar level of control and visibility. Family Zone’s Mobile Zone product is currently offered by OVO in conjunction with one of their teen mobile offerings.
Mr Ryan Cheers
Deputy Principal (Acting)
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