Cyber Safety

From Jonathan Carpenter, Head of Middle School

The hypocrite with his mouth destroys his neighbour, but through knowledge the righteous will be delivered.  Proverbs 11:9

We recently had SAPOL come and share a Cyber Safety talk with our Middle School and Senior School students. The sessions were engaging and involved educating students about the importance of being safe when online. Senior Constable Phillip Moss was excellent at outlining some clear and simple guidelines for students that will protect them when using the internet.

The information was very practical and included tips about how to: 

• strengthen personal passwords
• avoid cyberbullying
• report inappropriate content
• respond to specific scenarios
• not assume the identity of someone online.

Students were also shown resources available to assist in making better choices and keeping themselves safe including age appropriate videos from ‘ThinkUKnow’. 

We encourage you to take some time this week to look through the resources available at https://www.thinkuknow.org.au/resources-tab/parents-and-carers and to engage in recommended practices to help keep your child safe.

Perhaps the simplest but most important of these steps include:

• Devices are not used in bedrooms or other unsupervised spaces.
• Open, honest, and proactive conversations about what to do if something was to happen online that was not good.
• Reminding your child that the tongue has the power of life and death (Proverbs 18:21) and to only make comments online that they would feel comfortable making in front of you and other adults they respect. 

It was great to see the students engaging in these sessions and the appreciation they showed for the help they received.