Cybersafety

​At Ripley Valley State Secondary College our aim is to educate students on their role and responsibilities as a digital citizen, including awareness of dangers and managing their online identities (digital footprint). RVSSC is a school where the smart, safe and responsible use of information and communications technology is a cultural norm. Students, teachers and the wider school community are equipped to embrace the best these technologies can offer, while being savvy about the pitfalls.

To help our students (and families) navigate technolgy, social media and growing up in the digital age, RVSSC offer a range of programs and support to our community.

STYMIE

Student and Parents have access to Stymie (www.stymie.com.au)

Stymie helps combat the bystander effect by enabling students (and parents) to report incidents of bullying and harm, safely and anonymously. 

• The bystander effect occurs when the presence of others discourages an individual from intervening in an emergency situation.
• Social influence affects how bystanders behave, and students are less likely to stand up to bullying behaviours in public when the number of onlookers is high.
• This bystander effect is also caused by a diffusion of responsibility—the belief that someone else will help.

Taking into account that our kids are very socially invested, many of them don’t feel as though they can speak up and often, they just don’t know how.

Rather than trying to work against this peer pressure, our solution recognises the nuanced nature of their social currency, by providing security and anonymity to the bystanding community.

Students (and parents) can simply report an incident and it will get emailed to the school immediately and our team will follow up and take appropriate action.

SCHOOL WORKSHOPS

Early in the year we will be running Information workshops with STYMIE for our Students, Teachers and Parents. 

We will also be holding other various sessions throughout the year, including:

• 'Think You Know' workshops with our Adopt-a-Cop for both students during school and parents in an afternoon session. 
  
• Specific Social Media workshops tailored for parents run by college staff and external providers throughout the school calendar year.  These parent workshops address common IT issues and the latest online and social media trends. ​From discussing at home monitoring and filtering options and showing you the ins and outs of Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat, TikTok + other sites and apps that today's students are on, you will know what to look for, how to set up privacy settings and how to keep the communication lines open!
  
• Comprehensive Digital Literacy Program. This program is run for a term in our Digital Technologies elective in grade 7 (Grade 7 and 8 in 2020). The program covers everything from computer fundamentals through to digital footprints and cybersafety. Within this program we also teach the students on what privacy settings are important on popular social media sites, the dangers to look out for, and we show them first hand how public their information on the internet is, and what they need to do to protect themselves.​
  

cyberbullying-cybersafetyprintfriendlyguide.pdf