On the 25th of March, the Board Passed the following rules to meet new requirements around mobile phone use at schools.

Thank you for the feedback received from parents/caregivers, our students, and our staff. The outcome of this feedback has helped us develop a rule to support legislative changes to phone use in schools. The only areas for consultation regarding the legislation were phone storage and breaches - the rest are written into the legislation.

“Phones Away for the Day” rule to be adopted from the 29th April 2024

• Scope - This applies at all times while attending school which is the duration of the school day 9 am till 3 pm, onsite or offsite and relates to mobile phones only.
• Storage - Kept at home or in school bags (all liability for the phone is with the owner of the phone).
• Breaches - Step one is confiscating the phone till the end of the day, step two is confiscating the phone until parent/caregiver picks it up, and step three is a disciplinary meeting.
• Exemptions - These are to be written into a Learning Support Plan (due to a learning need) or Health Plan (due to a health need) countersigned by the Principal.
• Exemptions also apply where a registered teacher determines that the student needs to use or access a mobile phone for a specific educational task or purpose, or the Principal determines that there are special circumstances that make it necessary for the student to use or access a mobile phone.

For most of our students this will not be a problem at all, but we do acknowledge the addiction to mobile phones for a few of our students is very strong and this reliance will take some time to work through as a family before day one of Term 2.

The next step is to have these rules added to our policies and procedures website "SchoolDocs" and to set a review schedule. In the coming weeks, we will provide more details about our confiscation process and who to reach out to for learning support and health plans.