Dear Families,

Our school provides access to Department of Education online services. These enhance the contemporary learning opportunities available to students and the range of teaching tools available to staff to deliver the Western Australian Curriculum.

The Department’s online services currently provide students with access to:
• individual email and calendar accounts;
• the internet, with all reasonable care taken by central office and schools to monitor and control students’ access to websites while at school;
• online teaching and learning services such as web-conferencing and digital resources;
• online file storage and sharing services; and
• these online services at locations other than school.

In 2021 the Australian Government introduced legislation that requires schools to seek permission from parents and guardians to provide access to additional services outside of the above list.

Thus the College is now seeking permission to provide your child access to additional services. These services have been identified and are used to enhance student learning outcomes.

The College is currently using these services (https://voyager.jbsc.wa.edu.au/?cat=178) that require us to notify parents and guardians of their use, but not seek permission. Please consider this form and the above link your notification of the College’s use of these applications.

Please note that while every reasonable effort is made by schools and the Department to prevent student exposure to inappropriate online content when using Department provided online services, it is not possible to completely eliminate the risk of such exposure.

Please be aware that the Department has the right to review, audit, intercept, access and disclose messages created, received or sent over Department online services. Logs of email transactions and internet access data are kept for administrative, legal and security purposes and may be monitored. Similar to other corporate records, emails and internet access records are discoverable in the event of legal action and are subject to provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 1992. (www.foi.wa.gov.au)

Please also be aware that general internet browsing not conducted via the Department’s network is not monitored or filtered by the Department. The Department encourages close family supervision of all internet use by children in locations other than school, and strongly recommends the use of appropriate internet filtering software. Advice on managing internet use at home can be found on the Office of the E-Safety Commissioner website (www.esafety.gov.au/iparent).

If you agree to your child using these online services, please complete the information on the following pages.

Kind Regards,

Eleanor Hughes
Principal