Healthy Digital Citizenship

As a school we recommend that parents are fully involved and aware of their children’s digital media usage. As Conscious Parents of the Creative Community, we must be aware of a child’s age appropriate understanding and usage of media and social networking platforms.

 

As a school we recommend that parents are fully involved and aware of their children’s digital media usage. As Conscious Parents of the Creative Community, we must be aware of a child’s age appropriate understanding and usage of media and social networking platforms.  

Keeping this in mind we have put together guidelines for healthy media usage. We urge all parents to adhere to these guidelines so that we can together ensure a safe and healthy digital environment for our children.

A general request to all parents: please refrain from giving smartphones, media access, or online access on tablets, iPads, or computers to your children, without adequate involvement and supervision from you. Our Social Media letter has many tips on how you can interact with your child and teach them a shared responsibility. 

School Policy on Smartphones and Phones

  1. Children across all ages will not be allowed to carry smartphones to school. 
  2. Children below 14 years are not permitted to carry phones to school. 
  3. Students are not allowed to bring in any wearable digital devices to school.  
  4. Children need to get permission from respective Program Coordinators/Class Pillars to bring their phones to school in case of travel needs. For e.g. if he/she has to head for coaching classes on their own and parents need to know his whereabouts. In such cases a student is allowed to carry a simple numeric-pad phone that allows only text messages and calls.
  5. Usage of phones for any purpose is not allowed in the school bus or during school field trips. 
  6. Children who are permitted to bring phones to the North Bangalore campus will be required to deposit the same at the Front Office Desk during school hours. The same can be collected at the end of the school day. 
  7. Children need to deposit their phones with the Program Coordinator at Freedom Land, Doddaballapur, on the morning of their arrival. Their phones will be returned to them at the end of their weekly stay. During evenings there will be specific times when they can retrieve their phones for calls to loved ones at home.
  8. If the child carries a phone, they cannot use them in the vans/buses for any purpose other than emergency calls, which also needs the consent of the accompanying teacher in the bus.
  9. In case a child has or is using a phone without permission, the phone will be deposited at the front office and the same will be handed over to the parent/s directly.

School Policy on Personal Laptops

  1. Children belonging to class Ixora or Cosmos can carry a laptop to school after a written permission from the respective Class Pillar.  
  2. Laptops brought into the North Bangalore campus with permission, must have internet access disabled and only used under supervision of the concerned teacher/s.Files worked on at home, must have been emailed to concerned teachers prior to school hours, or loaded on a shared drive accessible to the teacher. Work files to be shared from personal laptops, can happen over email after school hours. Personal email inbox cannot be opened during school hours.
  3. Laptops brought into the Freedom Land campus need to have internet access enabled by the school IT department. The school does not allow the use of certain media sites at all. This list is provided to students and will be sent to parents
  4. In case a child is using a laptop without permission, the laptop will be deposited at the front office and the same will be handed over to the parent/s directly.

School Policy on Digital Content Viewing 

  1. We request you, as parents, to take full responsibility for monitoring content viewed, shared and commented on by your child outside school premises. The following sites will provide the much needed parental awareness and guidance on the same.
  2. Please review a movie’s viewership rating and usage of violence and sexual content on imdb.com or www.commonsensemedia.org before including your child in the viewing of a movie. Many children are viewing content that is not age appropriate. This has long term consequences that are not in the best interests of your child.

What NOT to do

  1. Please do not leave your mobile devices, TV, or any internet content viewed unattended that encourages a child to access or stay on and continue watching content that may be not age appropriate. 
  2. In the eventuality of such a mishap, here are two interesting links:

What to DO: 

  1. We recommend that all media usage time be discussed with children. Please come to this agreement with your child on this. 
  2. Have weekly check-in and dialogues on the same. 
  3. Please review the social media letter sent by the school. 

Over the pandemic, we have received information as well as complaints from parents in the Creative community that some of our children are viewing and sharing the following contents with other children:

 Music videos or memes or such, which portray entertainment with usage of cigarettes, drugs, and alcohol, of violent, target- killing games and videos

  1. Video links of pornographic sites
  2. Suggestive, sexually overt videos or photographs of themselves on social media sites
  3. Inappropriate and overtly adult song lyrics
  4. Improper use of social media and hangout sites by kids as young as 9-10 years   

As a school we are committed to creating a safe space for our children’s growth and development keeping the child’s best interest in mind. As a community, we all need to understand and take ownership/responsibility for the harmful impact digital media can have on our children through unsupervised exposure. 

Let us all work cohesively and together in ensuring healthy digital citizenship for all children.  

Way Forward

With careful consideration, we are putting the following nurturing limits in place that will be applicable to all children in school. 

Please have a clear dialogue with your children on:

  • What is permissible 
  • Agree upon natural consequences
  • Review the Social Media Letter

Any violation, in terms of accessing or viewing inappropriate activities/content that indicates usage of drugs, alcohol, sexually explicit content or the forwarding of videos or audio files that are suggestive in nature or have inappropriate, lewd, sexually overt lyrics during school time or via circulation of any of these between students at anytime, will lead to the following natural consequences:

  1. Phone or device usage will be suspended immediately, giving your child time for self reflection.
  2. Natural consequences are at the minimum a week of suspension followed by counselling with parents and the student with Program Advisors. In addition, the student will need to undergo three counselling sessions – once a week over at least three weeks. 
  3. At the residential campus, the child will attend school as a day-scholar until all counselling sessions are completed. 
  4. The concerned student’s bags will be checked on a regular basis on arrival at school by the school authorities.
  5. The student will be allowed to use only school devices for accessing digital content for classes and not be allowed to use personal digital devices during the counseling period of at least three weeks.