KORERO FROM MEL
In this age of digital technology rich education, there are two areas of particular concern and focus for us at the moment. Those are the increasing damage of social media in the lives of young people, and the use of Artificial Intelligence in plagiarism.
It should be fairly well known to us all that most teenagers have some experience with social media. Many use it healthily to communicate with friends and keep up to date on issues in New Zealand and from around the world. However, we continue to see the damaging effects of many other students treating each other unkindly on these apps. We are also seeing more and more students with access to social media platforms who are under the recommended age of use.
The harm of social media on young people is well documented, and often in the media. As parents, we take action to prevent our young people being in unsafe situations such as not allowing them out and about on the streets late at night, and if we found them using drugs or alcohol we would intervene. However, we are far less likely to get involved and put restrictions in place when they are being harmed by their online interactions. I encourage you to intervene if your young person is being targeted, or is targeting others on social media. They are your child, and you have the authority to take whatever action is required to ensure they are happy, healthy and safe. You can report harmful communications to the Police, seek advice on Netsafe and most importantly, remove or restrict access to social media accounts on both mobile phones, and laptops.
We have also seen a small number of instances this year of students using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to plagiarise learning submissions. We will be taking a proactive approach to this in the coming months by starting to be deliberate in our education of students about what constitutes plagiarism and how AI can be used effectively and properly in the classroom. Following that we will be working with students on a case by case basis if these instances continue to occur.
One final request from me is about collecting your child before the end of the school day. If this is required, please ensure your child knows when they need to come out of class to meet you, and email the Learning Advisor, preferably before the day so that they can provide them with a leave pass. We have recently seen an increase in parents arriving at reception to collect their children without prior arrangement (non-emergency situations), requiring admin staff to leave their positions to collect students from class. This is not sustainable, so we thank you for your support in this.