Campbell Primary School have won the Gosnells Safe City Award!
Campbell Primary School shows a strong commitment to the overall wellbeing of all students within our care. As a response to feedback from parents and interest from our school community, this year we have focussed on providing support around cyber safety for our students and parents.
To promote safe online practices, all of our students sign an ICT usage agreement form at the beginning of the school year. Here they are warned about what to do if anything inappropriate is found online, how to look after technology appropriately and the importance of usernames and safe passwords.
Furthermore, in Term 1 all of our Year 5 students participated in a comprehensive online cyber safety program by the Alannah & Madeline Foundation where they each successfully learnt an eSmart Digital Licence. It teaches students critical digital skills and promotes discussion about online safety between young people and their parents, carers and teachers.
Numerous classes this year also participated in cyber-safety webinars from the Office of eSafety Commissioner where they logged in with their teachers and joined a forum of schools from around the state to learn about how to identify unsafe situations online, recognise when and how to seek help and how to use ‘respectful chat’ or be a positive bystander in an online bullying setting.
We run a Coding Club for Years 3-6 students at lunchtime to promote uptake of S.T.E.M. skills along with problem solving and enjoyment using technologies. Students learn how to write Code, use Coding Apps, Robots and more, all while harnessing team work skills and safe online practices.
A select number of students in each class throughout the school are chosen each year to be Technology Team Leaders. They are awarded a special badge at assembly and undertake training from our Technology Support Officer about how to safely login, store and use devices and laptops, clean our technology products and use our online borrowing system in the Library. These students are then made role models to their classmates and are selected for specialised technology jobs in classrooms. They often give up their lunch play times to build their love of technology and help the school!
Campbell Primary School has actively supported parents and the community with workshops to further educate families about cyber-safety. Next month, WA Child Safety Services are visiting the school to conduct a Cyber Safety Parent Workshop and local police have also been invited to answer questions from the school community. Furthermore, in early 2018 we have secured Paul Litherland a well-respected presenter from Surf Online Safe, who will run a student and parent workshop about digital citizenship, online footprint, social networking and safe online gaming and website use.
Campbell Primary School plays a vital role in up skilling our parent community about the implications of posting comments, photos, activities, etc. online. The reality is that often they do not consider the unfavourable implications of their own usage or that of their children until something goes wrong. We are therefore keen as a whole school community to inform our families about the prevention side of these issues.
By actively educating our students and parent community in the health learning area and more particularly in cyber safe practices, we have a significant impact on providing skills and strategies to support families in being safe online. This promotes not only the individual safety of each of our students, but also the need for community safety too.