Students at Covenant Christian School are not permitted to use mobile phones or electronic devices (including, but not limited to DVD players, ipods, and MP3 players) within the school.

All devices must be lodged with their homeroom teacher, or at the school office, at the start of each day and picked up at the end. If students are found with an electronic device during the school day, it will be confiscated until it is collected from the office by their parent or guardian, and an appropriate consequence will be applied.

The rationale for this policy is based on several grounds, not least of which is the disruption they can cause to classes, the potential for some students to display such items as ‘status symbols’, and – most importantly – the staff’s duty of care towards each student.

We particularly want children to be talking, playing and interacting with each other at recess and lunch, not just sitting on their phones on social media. Social media can also be used for bullying from a young age, so this policy circumvents some of those problems.

In addition, each year or so we try and hold cyber safety sessions for staff, students (age appropriate) and parents (after hours) to make them aware of online dangers, precautions they can take, and resources available to help manage these issues.

We would strongly exhort parents to disallow any kind of electronic device in bedrooms overnight and/or turn off wi-fi overnight. This advice comes from Australian Government cyber safety advice.

It is very detrimental to children’s mental health to have 24 hour/day access to their devices – the light emitted from these devices interrupts sleep, and the content they are consuming late into the night often contributes to anxiety and social problems.

Parents should always have knowledge of what their children are accessing on the internet, which is not possible in the privacy of the bedroom overnight. Interruptions to sleep also cause problems with focus and engagement at school, leading to poor learning performance.

To set your child up for success in schooling and their social life, it is best to set firm boundaries around their use of electronic devices.

When you send your child to Covenant Christian School you can rest assured that our policy and practice will support you in this.

The Victorian Government announced that from 2020 onwards, phones will be banned in all schools. For more information on this announcement and the research behind it, click here: https://www.schoolstream.com.au/banning-mobile-phones-in-schools-a-round-up-of-research-from-around-the-web