All members of your school community should be active participants in creating and maintaining safe online environments.

Involving your school community will help to create a shared understanding of, and responsibility for, online safety. The Engage resources encourage the participation of the school community in creating a safe online environment.

They are useful for engaging school community members as active and valued participants and they facilitate the authentic involvement of students.

School community engagement plan

Building a positive and inclusive culture

• School community members engage online in ways that are welcoming and inclusive.

Involving the school community in decision-making

• Members share opinions, identify issues and collaborate on responses as part of meaningful decision-making.

Sharing information and communicating regularly

• Schools share online safety information in formats that suit the community.

Collaborating with families and community partners

• Schools promote online safety events as part of a whole-of-community response.

Developing the skills and capacity of parents/carers

• Schools empower parents/carers to teach, encourage and model safe online behaviours.

Activities for students to take the lead in online safety

Students can lead in online safety by using their strengths and skills. Consider asking:

• What are you good at online?
• What do you enjoy most about being online?
• What things make you feel unsafe online?
• How can you help your friends to stay safe online?

Students involved in online safety can be:

• Planners: Plan activities/lessons to understand how and why concepts are learnt.
• Researchers: Research shared experiences and trends to produce solutions.
• Teachers & Mentors: Support others, strengthen learning and help teachers understand perspectives.
• Evaluators: Deliver purposeful reflections on learning and behaviour.
• Decision makers: Partner with staff to decide on lesson content, activities and policies.
• Advocates: Raise issues and create solutions to influence change.

This material has been adapted with permission from the Australian Government eSafety Commissioner and is licensed under a CC-BY-NC-SA licence. Permission to adapt content does not constitute endorsement of material by the eSafety Commissioner.