Nundah State School's position:
- We view the student iPad as a tool for learning.
- We support parent decisions about setting of boundaries for iPad use at home.
- Students do not need games and entertainment apps on their iPads for school. Whether parents allow games and entertainment apps on their child's iPad is a family decision.
The following is guidance for parents when introducing any technology at home. It has been compiled from Cyber Safety advice from organisations including the Office of the eSafety Commissioner, CommonSenseMedia, Raising Children and Internet Matters.
Set boundaries
- Consider creating a Family Tech agreement. There are a few samples saved on the school website.
- The school recommends that you specify where in the house the iPad can be used and where it will be stored for charging.
- Overnight charging should be a part of normal homework routine. iPads should not be kept in students' rooms for charging, but rather in a common area of the house, or a location chosen by the parents or carers (e.g. parents' room).
- We strongly suggest that the iPad is not taken into bedrooms. Cyber safety experts advise all online devices should only be used in highly visible family areas.
- Whether children are allowed to install games and entertainment apps on their iPad is a family decision.
- Students don't need to use the iPad at home, unless for homework as communicated directly by the class teacher. The amount of time an iPad is used at home is a family decision.
- Double tapping the home button will allow you to see the apps your child has been accessing from the most recently opened/used.
- The use of the 'Guided Access' feature in Settings > Accessibility or 'Screen Time' may be helpful to some families with monitoring or organising time or app use. Assistance with these features can be found on Apple's support pages or requested from the school.
- Screen Time (if activated) will give you a daily/weekly summary of what apps have been used and for how long during the past 4 weeks.
- Make it a routine to check your student's internet browsing by accessing the history in Safari or other browsing apps e.g. Google.
Share the Experience:- Ask your children to demonstrate the way they use their iPad for school.
- Ask your children to teach you to use one of the apps they use at school.
- Have a play with the iPad and the apps, particularly before downloading any new apps/games the students request
Remove Distractions:- Before starting homework, if the iPad is to be used, request that all irrelevant apps are closed and all irrelevant web pages are closed.
- If you are experiencing problems with your child being off-task, there is the option of setting up Guided Access. Guided Access limits your device to a single app. See Apple's support page here.
- Apple Classroom can also be used at home so parents can remotely monitor what apps students are using (from a Mac or another iPad). There is a feature that can 'lock' students in a single app if required.
Messages, FaceTime and Group Chats- While they can be a beneficial way for children to interact, they can also be a distraction. Parents can choose whether they wish for the app to be uninstalled or they can control who can be contacted through the use of Screen Time.
- Messages and group chats can be beneficial as a way for friends to socialise, however we find them to be the largest causes of distress for our children online. This can be due to the overwhelming number of notifications, being added to a large number of group chats and inappropriate or hurtful language and content shared by others that make them feel uncomfortable.
To supplement our cyber safety education at school, we encourage you to actively help your children develop the skills needed to manage these online conversations.
- Encourage children to talk more in person than they do online (particularly for younger children)
- Turn off and reduce notifications. Kids can have a fear of missing out on the conversation, but also get frustrated when they have too many messages and notifications. Helping your child realise they are the ones in charge, not their device, is an important step to helping them realise a healthy balance of screen time. Consider using badges on the app to see that a message has arrived over receiving a push notification every time.
- Help your child to establish positive boundaries with their friends in a group chat.
- Sometimes children don't realise when they have crossed a line with their friends, and if boundaries aren't clear, it can be difficult for them to call their friends out when this happens, or to share their feelings about it with an adult for fear of getting in trouble.
- By helping them to learn to set boundaries with friends and how to talk about issues, you can help your child to develop good digital behaviours as they grow.
Some suggestions are: - Only say or do online what you would do face to face and if others were present
- Think before sending photos or comments (Do I have permission to send this? What would my friends/ parents say?)
- Acceptable time limits for messages (e.g. no messaging after 7:30pm or before 7am).
- No one likes spamming
- Walk away from online arguments. Talk to someone else face to face or on the phone, do something to make you happy before you respond.
- You can leave a group chat if you want. Children may need to be taught how to do this.
- Tell a safe adult when you feel upset or unsafe. Talking to a parent, carer or older sibling can stop most issues from escalating and causing more distress.
If you do allow your child to access these or other chat apps, we encourage you to monitor their use and discuss with their children how to use these appropriately and safely. Visit RaisingChildren.net.au (External Link) for more information. Parental Controls – Screen Time
- Apple has a feature called Screen Time which you can use to access real-time reports about how much time is spent on your iPhone or iPad, and set limits for the use of apps and features. This can be set up on the device or from a separate device if using Family Sharing. For more information visit: https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT208982
- Content Restrictions is a feature that allows you to place restrictions on changes made to the iPad and content that can be accessed through Apple's own apps such as Music or TV. If using this feature to control website access in Safari, please use 'Limit Adult Websites' as 'Allowed websites only' can have a drastic impact on students' ability to complete in-class tasks.
- Down Time allows you to schedule time where the iPad use is limited to particular apps of your choosing. You can set this to occur every day or for different times each day.
- App limits allows you to limit the amount of time that can be spent in particular apps or groups of apps. This can be adjusted to allow different time limits on different days (e.g. 1 minute of use on school days but 30 minutes on the weekend). This feature can also be used for websites.
Screen Time and Parental Controls – Parent sessions
We also offer parent sessions several times a year on how to set up appropriate iPad use at home through our Screen Time and Parental Controls sessions. In these sessions, we explain the research around screen time usage and what parents can do to set up successful expectations at home. For a recording of a recent session please click here (External link)
. For future sessions, please keep a look out in the school newsletter.The relevant guide for parents to set up Parental Controls on an iPad can be found in the Parent Setup guide webpage.