News

H.E.L.P Film Festival - LCS wins!

Congratulations to our Year 9 Graphic Design & Year 10 Animation & Video Editing students who were awarded prizes at the H.E.L.P Film Festival in Devonport. The theme for this year was “Pay it Forward” and students were asked to make a short film exploring the concept of this phrase, relating to young people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness i.e. couch surfing etc and/or young people that are affected by alcohol and other drug use – themselves, family members or friends.  The focus was on exploring how small ways of assisting someone else can make changes to a person’s life.

Our talented students won three awards: First prize of $1000, second prize of $500 and the People’s Choice Award of $1000 which was judged by the audience who attended the screening. Thank you to Mr Clark, Mr Hendra, Mrs Curtis and Mr Bosker who attended and for the creative skill and expertise of LCS teacher, Mr Josh Armstrong who inspires students in this area at our school.  What an awesome effort for our school!

Curt Anderson visits LCS

It was a privilege to have US Christian music artist Curt Anderson visit our school on Monday 12th August. Our Year 10 Music students and Senior worship band had the opportunity to attend a workshop with Curt prior to an assembly for Year 7 - 12 students held at Riverbank Christian Church. At the assembly Curt shared a powerful message of using our gifts while living a life of faith, then continued working with our Year 9 Music students before flying out of Launceston. It was wonderful timing to have Curt give feedback to our students as they prepare for the upcoming Rock Challenge.  What an amazing morning for all!

NSATIS Finals Update

Junior Soccer and Senior Badminton Finals

NSATIS Junior Soccer - LCS v SPC

On Friday 9th August our NSATIS Junior boys played against St. Pats in the Semi-Final.

It was a great match and it was awesome to see the LCS crowd outnumber the SPC crowd. The final score was 4-0 to St. Pats.   A big thank you to LCS parent Adrian Gill who coached the boys this year. He asked for the following shout out to passed on: "A huge shout out to the Principal, Staff, Parents and Students for their support of tonight's game. A good turn out! Although we lost, the boys put in 100%"

NSATIS Senior Badminton - LCS v SOC

On Monday 12th August our NSATIS Senior Badminton team took on SOC @ Scotch Oakburn in the Grand Final. The week prior, our team was successful in defeating Grammar to earn a place in the Grand Final.  In only our second year in the competition, it has been a great effort to win the title last year and to back up and make the Grand Final this year.  The matches were entertaining with SOC taking out the final 9-7. Again it was so encouraging to see the support of parents and students with the visiting LCS crowd outnumbering the SOC crowd!  Thank you to everyone who attended.

Praise God for way these students have used their gifts to play well and more importantly represent Christ and LCS on the sporting field/court!

Thank you to Real Beef!

Our Science & Engineering Team students are fast approaching the National Finals where they have the privilege of representing our state of Tasmania! Helping them get to Perth for the Final Challenge is local company Real Beef, who have generously provided some sausages for our fundraising at school. Two members of our Science Challenge Team took time out this week to say a big thank you to Real Beef for partnering with our school.  We hope in turn you might also support their business.  You'll find Real Beef every Saturday at the Harvest Market in person or you can check out their website, https://www.realbeef.com.au/

LCS Uniform Shop needs your secondhand uniforms

Our Uniform shop needs more second hand items to sell - so time to have a clean out at home of old uniforms! Please ensure items have been washed prior to bringing them in.  Our Uniform Shop is open and able to accept old uniforms on Monday - Friday from 8.30am to 9.30am and Wednesday's from 1.30pm - 3.30pm.

IT Wisdom for Parents

WHAT IS THE RIGHT AGE FOR KIDS TO START USING SOCIAL MEDIA?

It’s a question I have heard from parents numerous times

“What is the right age for my child to start using social media?” and to be honest, there is no simple answer that works in every situation.  I recently read an article from “Protect Young Eyes” that directly speaks to this question. Protect Young Eyes was set up to equip and encourage parents and students to use technology responsibly. 

Their website https://protectyoungeyes.com is well worth a look.

The Legal Side

Every social media site and app have “terms of use” available online. These terms of use clearly spell out the legal age a person must be in order to use their services. In most cases this age is 13 in order to comply with COPPA. The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) is a U.S. federal law created to protect the privacy of children under 13. The big players like Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat, YouTube and Twitter all adhere to this age of 13.

So, at the risk of being blunt, if your child is using social media before the age of 13, they clearly shouldn’t be. This is not a social media issue, this is a parenting issue. When you sign up to a social media account, you must agree to the terms of use and if you are doing this for a child under the age of 13, you are lying. If your child has done this themselves, they lied.

The More Important Question

Turning 13 meets the legal requirements but as a parent or guardian, I believe our responsibility goes way beyond this. I don’t believe “What is the right age?” is the right question. I think the right question goes more like this:

As a parent or guardian, knowing all you do about your child, knowing that your child is at least 13 years old, do you believe that he/she is ready to deal with the dangers, pressures, emotions and temptations of social media and use it responsibly?

Here are a few things to consider when trying to answer the right question:

• How are your child’s friendships/social skills? One of the problems with social media is that things can be misunderstood very easily.  If there are problems in friendships in real life, social media will make them worse. Can they hold a conversation face-to-face with someone other than family? If not, then they are not ready for social media.
• Does your child obey you? When it comes time to allowing social media, clear boundaries about its use will need to be set. If you already struggle to get your child to obey you, it will only get worse with social media. If you have to ask again and again just to get the dish washer unpacked, wait until you are trying to get them to put their screens down for the night.
• How is their self-esteem? Do they know that they are fearfully and wonderfully made? Do they know that they are a child of God? Do they know that God so loved them that He sacrificed His one and only son for them? Do they know that God knows the number of hairs on their head? The truth is social media can be very negative. Skinny and Sexy does equal followers and likes. If they do not know how precious they are, social media will only make that worse.
• Is your child responsible and trustworthy? If you wouldn’t leave your child home alone for a period of time, then they are probably not ready for social media. If they are not ready for the real world, they are definitely not ready for the online world.
• Does your child understand the importance of protecting their personal information? They need to know what personal information is and they need to know why it needs protecting. Things like phone numbers, email addresses, physical addresses, photos, their school name, their sporting clubs can all be used to identify them. Privacy settings inside apps are very important. Do not accept friend requests from strangers and never use location sharing.
• What about Cyber bullying? Chances are at some stage your child will experience or be the target of Cyber bullying. They need to know how to manage and report this behaviour.
• Have you talked to your child about the awkward things? Pornography, sexting, sexual predators, these things will come up. You need to have these conversations. You child needs to know what these things are and what to do when confronted by them.
• Is your child willing to let you supervise their social media activity? And, are you willing to spend the time to supervise their activity? This can be done in 2 ways. Firstly, by asking for their device frequently and scrolling through their social media feeds and secondly, become their friend and follow their social media accounts. This will enable you to observe what they are doing online and support them to make safer choices about what they share and how they share it. But be prepared to learn more than you might like about their friends and possibly about them. If the answer to either of these questions is no, then they are not ready for social media.

What makes this harder is the pressure put on our kids to have a social media presence. A lot of this pressure comes from FOMO (fear of missing out). Speaking from experience, my own kids very seldom if ever talk on the phone. Almost all communication is done via social media. Parties, movies, dinner dates, camping weekends, almost every social event is organised on social media. Hey, my kids even study with their school mates over social media.

Raising kids these days has definitely changed as has the choices parents are confronted with. What hasn’t changed is God, His wisdom and His word.   I’m constantly drawn back to Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.

The more important question is this……

As a parent or guardian, knowing all you do about your child, knowing that your child is at least 13 years old, do you believe that he/she is ready to deal with the dangers, pressures, emotions and temptations of social media and use it responsibly?

Brad Robinson

ICT Coordinator

Launceston Christian School

2020 Calendar has been updated

Our calendar for 2020 has been updated - please download the newest version below

Year 11 & 12 Subjects for 2020

Thanks to everyone who attended our recent Senior Information Evening.  It was full of great information and students are encouraged to make an appointment to choose subjects for Year 11 & 12 in 2020 as soon as possible.  This can be done via our office.  For those that aren't sure which subjects to choose and would like to hear some student wisdom - check our our two Senior Subject Bites shown on the night below.  

LCS Vimeo

Did you know that our school has a vimeo channel where you can see the many films our Visual Production & Design Team create about our school community?  Vimeo is a great way to show prospective families more about our school as it allows the opportunity to explore school areas and programs at leisure.  You can click on the Vimeo logo on our website, view some creations on our Facebook page or use the link below to see all of the audio visuals that have been created by our team.  Below is one sample of what you can see on our page and we'd love you to follow us!

LCS Vimeo home page - click HERE