From the Director of Students

As we move to remote learning, our students, staff and wider college community would be feeling, in some way, overwhelmed and unsure of what is ahead. The stresses of students needing more discipline in getting their schoolwork completed at home while hoping that a reliable internet service will get them through the school day will certainly impact on students. Some parents will be feeling overwhelmed with the educational demands and if they are able to guide their child in the right direction during a ‘remote learning’ school day. 

The wellbeing of all our College community is constantly on our mind, this drives us to continue to support students and families with a variety of pastoral care lessons while at home. In discussions with our Year Coordinators and College counsellors, it is clear that they will continue to deliver students with a quality pastoral care program over the coming weeks. 

While students spend large amounts of time online, I would like to also share my concerns for online safety and practicing healthy online habits. 

The suggestions and recommendations below are for parents who may not be ‘on par’ in regard to technology when supervising their children online. This is, at times, a difficult and frustrating thing to do as your child maybe giving you misleading or incorrect information. 

The main online tools the College will be using to communicate and teach students are: 

· Outlook: Student and teacher email system. 

· Google classroom: Teacher / student learning system. 

· Google teams: Teacher / student video conferencing system. 

· Zoom: Teacher / student video conferencing system. 

Student policies and protocols have been developed for appropriate use of these online platforms and students are expected to uphold the correct expected use of these online tools. 

This leads me to my next concern. These are numerous online social ‘chat’ websites that allow young people to connect. Unfortunately, over the last 5 years there has been a massive spike in young people being groomed online. 

Online Grooming is when someone uses the internet to trick, force or pressure a young person into doing something sexual - like sending a naked video or image of themselves. ... Someone who's grooming others online will sometimes build their trust before talking about doing anything sexual. 

The College not only prepares young people for the ‘dangers’ of online chat sites but tries to equip students with the skills to protect themselves from certain interactions with unknown people. 

As a parent, the best way to deal with concerning online dangers is to actually know how these social sites operate and having your child’s computer in view at all times. To help parents, I recommend you visit ‘Safe on Social Media’. www.safeonsocial.com

Safe on Social Media offers a unique solution that combines cyber safety with information security and risk management skills so that parents learn practical things that they can use in everyday life.

The website gives parents tips and advice on all the current social media apps and sites. The site is run by Kirra Pendergast, and over the past five years she has taught online safety to more than 400,000 schoolkids (and their parents). 

And now, for the first time, she has taken everything she teaches in nationally-acclaimed seminars. Kirra has created the Safe on Social Toolkit: a digital ‘survival kit’ of everything parents need to know to keep their kids safe on social media right now. 

But before I tell you about it, let me be completely upfront with you: 

• Unlike many of the helpful services offered to parents, this is a paid (not free) service.
• It’s not a magic software solution that instantly makes social media “disappear” from your child’s life — i.e. you’ll still have to be very involved as the “parent” and do the work of building a relationship with your child.
• And it’s not appropriate for every parent. (e.g. if you’re already incredibly tech-savvy, or your kids are 18+, it probably won’t help you).

That said, for parents who are worried about what their kids are doing (and seeing) online … Kirra’s new Safe on Social Toolkit could be the most powerful tool you’ve ever had for keeping them safe. 

Kirra gives advice on the latest social media sites and apps young people are using. 

Apps like: Tic Tok, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Discord, Omelge and many others. 

I hope this can help parents as we all get our ‘head around’ working safely in an ‘online world’ together.

Mr Baldino Vetrano

Director of Students