Principal's Report

Dear Parents, Carers and Community Members,

It’s hard to believe we are already in Week 8 of Term 3! The past few weeks have continued to be filled with events that highlight the spirit of our St Joseph’s community.

Father’s Day 

We hope all our fathers, grandfathers and male role models had a relaxing Father’s Day filled with special memories. A huge thank you to all our families who supported our Father’s Day Breakfast and Gift Stall. Special thanks to our wonderful P&F for preparing, cooking and serving a delicious breakfast and to Mrs Willis and Mrs Fletcher for coordinating the gift stall. We are very grateful to everyone who helped make the Father’s Day celebrations possible.

Uniforms

As the weather warms, we will begin the transition from winter to summer uniform. During this changeover period, students may wear either the full winter uniform or the full summer uniform. We kindly ask that you also ensure your child is wearing the correct school shoes, school coloured hair ties and that they have a school hat every day. 

Changes to our Social Media and Use of Digital Images

You will see changes on our school social media including Facebook and Instagram and the posting of student photos and names. This is in direct response to the rise of generative AI and our commitment to the safety of our young people.

The rapid growth of accessible generative AI tools has introduced new risks in regards to how photos and videos may be harvested, stored and altered online. AI enabled photo and video manipulation is increasingly realistic and more accessible. Using photos posted by schools to public locations such as social media this technology is being used to create nonconsensual and sexualised images of students and staff. 

We must consider these risks in the context of our duty of care for all our people - our students, our staff and our families. These changes serve to ensure our people are ‘safe, valued, respected and cared for’.

Following the recent advice from the e-Safety Commissioner about increasing AI risks and the misuse of images, our school and the wider Armidale Catholic Schools system are following guidelines to move to a safer digital environment.  We will regularly review our practices as the landscape changes to ensure processes are up to date.

To adapt to these emerging risks while continuing to celebrate student success, we are making the following updates to our digital communications:

• Focusing on Group & Contextual Photos: We will use wider-angle shots, group activities, and photos that showcase student learning, work, and participation from behind or at angles where faces are not fully identifiable.
• Reducing High-Resolution Photos: We will avoid posting close-up, high-definition photos of individual students on public platforms.
• Removing First & Last Name Combinations: Student names will not be published alongside their images on public social media.
• Using Internal Channels: High-resolution photos, individual achievements, and identifiable images will be reserved for secure, password-protected internal platforms (such as Compass) rather than public social channels.

We know how much our community values seeing the daily life of our school, and we remain committed to sharing the wonderful achievements of our students. However, protecting their privacy and long-term digital footprint must come first.

Thank you for your ongoing partnership, understanding, and support as we take these proactive steps to keep our students safe in an evolving digital landscape.

May God bless you and your family.

Casey Chard

Principal