Having attended the ACMA free cyber safety evenings at 2 previous schools, we were keen to explore another option. After much research online and speaking to other school directly, we decided on paying for Susan McLean to run a student incursion and a parent information evening early in Term 1. Having seen the poor attendance at previous parent evenings for this very topic, we decided to make it a compulsory element of the students receiving their Chromebooks...funnily enough when the students knew their parent's attendance = Chromebook in their hands that same week- we had a 100% parent attendance! (hint: we also offered free babysitting and screening of Frozen so parents had no excuse)
Susan's proudly states that she doesn't "sugar coat" the message, she tells it how it is. With her experience in the Police force and broadly in cyber safety education, she has anecdotes to share to reinforce all of her messages. In short, the kids were blown away and parents were too! Our principal and I have received overwhelmingly positive feedback from parents both on the night and in the week since..."it was confronting but what we needed", "I guess I just didn't know those apps existed", "it's fantastic that all the parents now have the same message and can act together", "we will be making a few changes at home immediately".
We surveyed the students (click here to see the survey) a week after the incursion to get some feedback...the results were very encouraging!
Marty- mmcgauran@hfmw.catholic.edu.au
Can highly recommend Susan McLean: http://www.cybersafetysolutions.com.au/
