The year in education and helping kids stay safe online

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Shane Green: 

Hi everyone and welcome back to isPodcast ISV Show for schools in the Wider Community. I'm Shane Green. On today's episode, Nat Moutafis talks with Kirra Pendergast from Safe on Social about how we can empower our kids to make the right choices as they go online. But first, Michael Broadstock talks with Independent Schools Victoria Chief Executive Michelle Green, about the year in education and how  ISV will be supporting schools in 2023. 

Michael Broadstock: 

Hi Michelle. Another big year in education. 

Michelle Green: 

Yes, and what a big year, Mike. Another big year of challenges, but also a big year of looking at new ways of doing things, which is the way I like to see 2022 leading into 2023. We know the pandemic's not completely over. We all wish it was and wellbeing of students and teachers as a real focus for all of us. And I think it's something that will continue to be a focus in the future. So, our challenge, as it is with most parents and with all teachers and schools, is how to make sure that our students are able to come through this their very best. 

Now of course we've got another big challenge though; we've got a teacher shortage and we've seen lots of teachers leaving the profession. I think, like many of us, teachers thought about what it was that they did with their lives during lockdown and many teachers have left the profession. 

I think it's time we looked at ourselves, we looked at teacher training and I know that Minister Clare has a very large program looking at teacher training which we participated in, but we all need to think about the role of teachers and what it is that we can do to support them. 

ISV has some research that we conducted during the pandemic, it'll come out next year, and it's talking to teachers about what it is that they value and what their particular challenges are. So we are looking forward to seeing the results of that and to seeing what we can do to mitigate some of the problems. 

Michael Broadstock: 

Another challenge, I guess, one that's led to teachers being out of the classroom as well is the increasing administrative burden on schools and teachers. 

Michelle Green: 

It's really like a Sara Lee cake. We get layer, and layer and layer of red tape, until many of our schools are having two higher, not one, but two officers, to make sure that they are totally compliant with all of the regulations.  

Now we are not against safe working environments, we're very much for them. We think that our schools need to do everything that they possibly can to work within Australian society and they do. But we just think that the dead hand of regulation on schools, and on teachers and on some of our students could be reviewed and we'll be looking at that in the new year. 

Michael Broadstock: 

What sort of things are schools looking for assistance with? 

Michelle Green: 

Compliance with government regulations taking up more and more time of everybody.  
 
Meeting the needs of students with disabilities – a big one – we get a lot of calls about that from parents as well, who want to do the right thing, want to see if how schools can support them and how we can support them.  

We provide advice on employment law, positive advice on employment law.  
 
How to respond to a media inquiry. Schools are getting media inquiries about very small issues that seemed to have been blown up on social media.  

There's also this whole new area about cyber attack and we know that schools and other organisations like schools are targets. We saw what happened with Medibank and Optus. We don't want to be the next Medibank, so we are giving a lot of advice to schools, and schools are pretty much ahead of the curve on this. 

It leads us to the question, really, Mike, who would be a teacher and who would be a principal? When I see how difficult it is, we ask these people to scope and craft the lives of young people where in their hands is the future of Australia, without putting it too emotionally, who would do it?  

So all of our professional learning aims to support those people in their very important role. 

Michael Broadstock: 

So, with regards to our professional learning and leadership programs, what has ISV got in store for schools next year? 

Michelle Green: 

We know there's a lot of professional learning programs out there. You can learn to be a math teacher, you can go to the Math Teachers Association, there's lots of in-depth programs.  
 
With ISV, we look at things that partner the best nationally and internationally with the best. It's why we spend a lot of work with Harvard, with Harvard Business School, while we spend time with Yale and Stanford with universities in Singapore.  

One of those things, for example, is Project Wayfinder. It sounds unusual, but we found this program, which is very well regarded now, internationally, and what it's about is helping students to find their purpose. And when you put it into a school, you work with students, they're encouraged to look not only at what it is that they do, who they are, but look at the environment, look at what they are going to do to improve the lives of others. So, it's finding your purpose. 

Now what we found is parents come back to schools and they're saying, 'What have you done to my child? Because my child is suddenly responding to me, suddenly caring about things that are happening at home’.   They can see positive cognitive change.  

So, ISV brought that to Australia. We're very proud of it. That's our role; partner the best with the best. We offer it cross-sectorally, but we are really pleased that many of our schools are taking it up, and many of our parents and students are interested as well. So that's what we offer. 

There are other things as well. We have a highly accomplished and lead teachers program. So people go through those very deep programs where they are accredited by a national body and we support them with that, that's a big program, but we have some other very interesting programs.  

The idea of transformative repair, the idea that that which is broken can be remade into something beautiful. If you think about what's happened during COVID, many of us have had our lives broken, students have had their lives broken, and to teach them to take those pieces of something and make it beautiful, look at it in a different way as a very, very powerful metaphor.  

And we found students and teachers who do not want to stop, who want to work through the breaks, who say, 'We know we've done this two days this week, when is the next time?' 

And we have teachers who've come to us and said, ‘I've never spoken about these things with my school community before, but now I realise that I need to speak to them because it makes me more of a person’. 

And it works on the personal, but it also works at school level. So, one of the schools, the groups got together and they said, ‘Why don't we look around the school and see those things which are broken?’  

And funnily enough, and perhaps to the chagrin of the principal, although he took it in very good part, I have to say. They said, 'There are potholes in the roads and we've been trying to fix these potholes for ages and they're annoying. Why don't we think of creative and pretty ways that we can fix the potholes?’ 

Michael Broadstock: 

I know another really interesting program we've got coming up next year: Ideas into Action 

Michelle Green: 

Yes. And that's one of the things that we are most interested in because it's really easy to have a good idea. And what happens is people go to conferences, or they come in here and they do a professional learning process, and then they go back to their school and they get busy. We all do it at home as you think, "I must do that." You get busy. And the good idea is never eventually. And we knew that this was happening, and so we partnered with Harvard Project Zero and over a three-year program, we've developed some tools which can be used by teachers, by students and staff, which look at how it is you might make small steps to make sure that something happens, whatever it is that the challenge is.  

So there's a toolkit that people can use and we are getting feedback now about different ways that people have used these new learning routines. I'm really hopeful that we'll be able to launch some of them for parents next year as well. The great thing, when you see these tools, they're intuitive. You can see that they're not just words on a piece of paper that you can work yourself through them. So they're good fun. 

Michael Broadstock: 

So, what can schools and school communities expect in 2023? 

Michelle Green: 

We are really going to focus next year on things that make it easier for parents, for students, and for our schools. That's going to be our entire focus. We want to make sure that all of the issues that we've been facing are not forgotten, they're not swept under the carpet, but that we are as positive as we possibly can be about moving forward as an organisation and as a community.  

So, for example, we are able to help schools make cost savings. ISV is going to focus on that, where we are going to be able to help parents to make cost savings, we're going to do that as well. Many of our parents come to us and say, can you help? And yeah, we can because we have some deals that we've done to help schools that may also be able to be used for parents. So, we're going to focus on cost savings.  

We want to make sure that our community, the independent school community, our parents, our grandparents, our alumni, our students, we want to make sure that the pigeonholing that continues to occur does not occur.  

Quite often the media and others make assumptions about an independent school parent who they might be. And occasionally some of the assumptions are true. But when you look at our members, you look at the growth in schools across Victoria, you look at the special assistance schools, you look at schools that are providing creative avenues for a whole lot of students. You look at Aboriginal students in schools, when you look at them, you realise that it's very easy to make assumptions about Independent Schools and those assumptions are wrong.  

So, we can think about ways that we can challenge those assumptions in the new year. So, we'll still be doing all the great things that we do. We'll be expanding programs for member schools of course, but that will be our focus. 

Michael Broadstock: 

And personally, what are you hoping to see in 2023? 

Michelle Green: 

I know that we thrive when we are together. We know that great ideas and transformation occur when people get together and there's some creative thought. We all need to reconnect. We all need to remember that we are part of a living, breathing, creative community no matter what we do. And that's what I'm wishing for myself and for everybody else that I meet because Victoria needs creativity. 

Michael Broadstock: 

Fantastic. Well thanks very much for joining us on isPodcast. 

Michelle Green: 

You're welcome. Thank you very much Mike. And I'm hoping that we all have a great meeting. 

Shane Green: 

Are you giving your child their first device for Christmas? There are boundaries you need to set first says Kirra Pendergast, founder and CEO of Cyber Education Group, Safe on Social, she talks with Natalie Moutafis about the dangers kids face online – from risky social media use to sextortion – and how we can help keep our children out of harm's way on the web. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

Today I'm joined by Kirra from Safe on Social. Kirra, welcome to isPodcast. 

Kirra Pendergast: 

Thank you for having me. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

So we're almost at the end of term four and that means school holidays are on their way and will no doubt see more of our young people looking to their devices to connect with their friends and for just general entertainment. Now your organisation, Safe on Social, recently shared information on how predators are now targeting children through our music, iTunes and Spotify profiles. And when we see things like this is parents, how can we help ensure our kids are safe? It feels like we're just plugging holes on a leaky ship. 

Kirra Pendergast: 

It's changing every single day, that is for sure. I am completely unshockable now the best thing you can do as a parent is be having big conversations and not relying on set and forget technology like filters and things like that because they just don't work. People are finding their way around them. And I think what happened with the iTunes music and Spotify cases are classic examples of that. No filter in the world's going to stop that. And so, we need to be really seriously considering how that looks and what we can do better. And it's all back to education and conversation. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

So how do we approach that with our kids? Because you know, you get the eye roll going, oh whatever. 

Kirra Pendergast: 

You can hear the eye roll. I just finished a session with 420 kids in one room and I asked them who has awkward conversations with their parents in the car? And they go, ‘Oh God!’. They're all waiting for it when you're in the car. But that is the best place to do it.  

It's having these conversations that will empower a child rather than make them feel guilty or shame or anything like that. So asking the question, what would you do if this happened to a friend, for example, is a much better way to approach it. Or I just heard this podcast and they were discussing this kind of thing. Has that ever happened to anyone you know?  

Don't say, has it happened to you? Because that way it gives them an opening to feel empowered to talk about things that are going on in their life. And we need to remember with kids: online and off – it's the same thing – It's just life to them 

When they're little. It's okay. It's just been that when they get older, if you are not setting healthy habits when they're really little, they're going to work around it. So, the last couple of weeks what I've seen, the big clangers in this space have been kids telling me that they just changed the time zone on their phone.  

So, mom and dad have got restrictions in place and they'll change their phones to say that they're in London, things like that so they can avoid it when they get home. The other one is, I had a group of girls tell me that they'd all pulled their pocket money and bought another device. So if one of them's device was being monitored or they got banned in any way that they had a spare phone for their friend. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

Wow, that's clever. 

Kirra Pendergast: 

I've heard absolutely every kind of option you could possibly imagine I've seen happen. But at the end of the day, it's about having trust-based conversations because while they're little, absolutely yes, put some parental controls in place so they're not being bombarded with porn and things like that.  

But I can guarantee you the minute they go on a sleepover and somebody doesn't have the amount of restrictions in place that you have at home, your kids need to know what to do when things go wrong. And that's where we're all a bit guilty of not really thinking critically about that. 

And banning phones and putting filters in place and paying for monthly subscriptions to whatever filter and whatever monitor is not going to work.  

And unfortunately, there's a lot of people in my sector that lead very biased discussions because they're reselling those kinds of products. It's thinking about that, thinking about who you're following and where you're getting your information from, is it biased? Is it not biased? Looking at every angle of it as a parent is really difficult and really time consuming.  

So, that's why I said it's like eating an elephant with a teaspoon. Just take what you need. Because otherwise you're going to be sitting in the corner, rocking in the fetal position. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

 Very much so. There is always something and it's changing so much. And then you hear, there'll be a news report about something, you'll be like: 'Oh, what now? What else do I have to be across?' 

Kirra Pendergast: 

Yesterday I had a panicked mum, obviously de-identifying all of this, I had a panicked mum contact me because her 15-year-old son was in the middle of a sextortion attempt.  

So, thankfully, she had a great relationship with her boy who told her what was going on. So, he'd shared a nude with someone that he thought was a girl that from a nearby school, and they turned around and said: 'If you don't give us a whole stack of money’, it was like five grand, ‘We're going to share this in the group chat’. 

So, no matter how much we speak to kids from kindergarten up about not sharing personal information and not letting strangers into the group chat, they're not hearing it. And the reason I think they're not hearing it is because of the really poor behaviour that parents are modelling.  

So, the latest thing that I've been talking about, and as I said, I just came from a school where I spoke to 420 students in year seven and eight, one session, and there was a whole lot of discussion. And one of the things I talked to them very openly about now, because I want them to go home and talk to their parents, I want them to have those cringey conversations in the car and throw it back at their parents and say, 'Well, hey, while we are talking like this, let's think about what you are doing on social media’.  

And 175,000 kids under the age of 13 sign up to use social media every day of the week around the world. By the time they are 13, there's, on average, around 72 million data points collected. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

Wow. 

Kirra Pendergast: 

Yeah, that was some research done by an organisation that I'm involved with, full disclosure, they're called Totally Awesome, and they are totally awesome, out of Singapore, they're a media company. I work with them, and that research was phenomenal.  

But when you look at it, and what I explained to the kids about it today was, ‘So we've been teaching since you were in kindergarten not to share your name, your age, your location, or your school on social media’. And what does mom and dad do on Instagram? Hashtag first day of school. Hashtag, oh my God, I'm so proud of somebody because of this, winning this certificate, with a photo of the school uniform, the whole lot. And then you go down the feed a little bit further and you'll see, 'Oh, happy birthday darling. I'm so proud of you. Now you're 10’. And a photo of a birthday cake with a big number 10 on it. 

It'll have where they're playing sport on the weekend, so then you have the location of where they're living. So in a few posts, the average parent has outed all of the information we've been teaching kids not to share online for their whole lives. So they don't see privacy because they've never had it. They've been on social media, in some cases, since they're an ultrasound photo. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

It's a bit of an eye-opener, really. I'm one of those parents that have shared stuff, and then the more you know, the better you do. So I locked down everything when I realised that I was sharing stuff and I thought, 'Hang on, none of this was shared when I was young’. Something that once you know about it and you start thinking about it, it does make sense. 

Kirra Pendergast: 

I worked with a group of year nine and 10 girls at Sydney Girls High today. Which is an incredible school here in... I'm in Sydney today.  

And I said to them, I said, 'Girls, you need to think about what this looks like long term to the point that imagine if your mother had TikTok when she was 15. Imagine what you're sharing on TikTok now, if your mom had have done that and someone in this room found it. What would they do with it?’  

And they went, "Oh my God." We really need to be thinking about those kinds of things and what it looks like a long, long way down the track. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

Now, we're also getting really close to Christmas time and we know so many families will be looking at giving their child their first device, whatever that may be. Have you got any, in a nutshell, advice about how families can navigate this if they're doing it for the first time? 

Kirra Pendergast: 

A hundred percent, healthy boundaries in place. So, my big tips, if you're buying a child a device for Christmas, if you're not prepared to have a conversation about porn and things like that, do not buy them a device for Christmas. Because the minute they've got that in their hand and it's a smart device that can connect to the internet, they're going to access it at some point.  

Minimise the data plan as much as you can. So, making sure that they've got a very, very small amount of data when they're off your Wi-Fi at home so that they can't bypass all the firewalls and things that schools put in place to keep them safe. Those sorts of things are really important as well.  

The number one though, Natalie, number one, ban them from the bedroom as young as possible. We just had a conversation with the presenters that work with me. We were all together today, and one of the women that is actually sitting in the room with me right now, there's habits that you can get in place early where kids just know that their devices have got to go downstairs, they're not allowed to have them after a certain period of time. Certain time of night, I should say. So dinner time, no more devices after that.  

Putting those boundaries in place as young as possible is the best thing that you can do for yourself and for your kids. Because if you look at things like – And it's not only what they're accessing, it's what it's actually doing to their brains –  when you look at the longitudinal study into Australian children, that was done in 2019 called Growing Up Digital has a direct link between the rise of anxiety and depression in young people with those kids that sleep with internet connected devices in their bedrooms. 

Because if they wake up in the middle of the night, that blue light that hits the back of their brain is like dawn and their brain thinks it's time to wake up. So that compounded lack of sleep, if they do that five nights in a row, it's like they've been awake for 24 hours straight.  

Now, in every session that I did today, every child in the room put their hand up to say that they were sleeping with their phones in their room. And the reason that I know that they're doing that is because I ask the question, 'Who has received messages in the group chat at 11:00, 12:00, 1:00 o'clock in the morning?' They all put their hands up. It's really affecting their sleep. So, keeping phones out of the bedroom as young as possible is really important. If they're already in that mode, changing it as soon as possible. You can buy those things called a kSafe, they're like- 

Natalie Moutafis: 

Yeah, the lock boxes and things. 

Kirra Pendergast: 

Yeah, they're used to lock up chocolate. They're $50 online, they're for when you're dieting. It's called a kitchen safe. They fit blocks of chocolate, they fit a phone. So, lock them up if you need to just to break that little habit that's starting to form.  

But the sooner you can put boundaries in place, the better. I also would say that if you're intending on giving your child a device for Christmas, get them to do a presentation on cyber safety every week in the lead up to Christmas from now.  

So, it's a little project like they're getting their driver's licence. And also, when they want apps, because that's coming straight after getting their device, get them to do a little business case on why they should be using the app. Because again, if I ask a room full of kids who's telling their parents that they're a bad parent because they're the only person that's not allowed to use TikTok in their class?  

And they all put their hands up and I'm like ‘So why do you want to use TikTok?’ And they go, ‘Because all of my friends are’. And I'm like, ‘Think about that for a second. Could you really justify why you need TikTok in your life other than all your friends are doing it?’ And they can't answer the question. So, when they start to think a bit more critically and parents are encouraging that, there's a lot more positive outcomes. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

All very good tips. I'm scared for my future, but... 

Kirra Pendergast: 

Don't be scared. It’s about awareness. If you put all of this in place, everything is fixable. That's the other thing that we need to teach kids.  

Like what happened with Mr 15 yesterday. The fact that he had a great relationship with his mother, even though he had sent a full frontal nude to someone that he didn't really know, and it was a scammer that turned it around on him.  
 
The fact that he went straight out and told his mom and said, 'I need to call the police’. And actually called 000, was that it was all fixed.  

Thankfully it was somewhere where I know a lot of the local police, so I was also able to make a phone call, and we had people there within 15 minutes. And it was like as long as they know to speak up, that if there's any kind of predatory behaviour. 

Another thing parents should always teach their children is if they're playing Roblox or any of those little games like that, if anyone ever asks them to be the mom or the dad or offer them free Robux (which is the in-game economy) to play the mom or the dad or the doctor or the nurse or something like that, or tries to move them from Roblox to TikTok or wants to connect with them on Snapchat or whatever.  

As long as they know that they should tell a trusted adult straight away when that stuff happens, you can intercept this a lot. And all of those kinds of things, which is obviously the early stages of online grooming. That can all be reported to ACCCE.gov.au That's the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation. 

And as I said to Mr 15 yesterday, if they're being sextorted like that, the police, even though they've broken a law sharing an image like that, they're never going to get in trouble. The police are going to say, 'That was silly. Don't do it again’. And go after the person that's trying to sex talk the child. So they need to understand the reality. Gone are the days where we walk in and say, ‘If you share a nude, you're going to juvenile detention’.  

Just eliminate the fear and tell them what to do practically and calmly if things go wrong. And if they speak up, we can fix it. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

Yeah, keep building those relationships so that we feel comfortable talking. 

Kirra Pendergast: 

100%. Yeah. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

Amazing advice. Thank you so much, Kirra. 

Kirra Pendergast: 

You are so welcome. 

Shane Green: 

And that's it for this episode of isPodcast. We wish you a safe and happy end of your break. Keep an eye out for our summer series over the holidays. We'll be re-sharing some of our favourite stories.  

We're going to leave you with year three, Harkaway Hills College student, Naushali Anne Navaratne, and her award-winning poem, It's Raining Cats and Dogs. Our student poetry competition judges praise the rhythm, pacing and clear and crisp intonation of this fun-filled poem. 

Naushali Anne Navaratne: 

It's raining cats and dogs.  

It's raining cats and dogs.  

I can't go outside.  

Mom says I'll catch a cold, but by the time the rain stops, I might be too old.  

I thought and thought, what could I do?  

What will you do if you had nothing to do?  

I would've watched TV, but it's a weekday.  

I guess I could colour, but I want to go outside and play.  

I could read a book from our nook but that would be boring.  

I could have a nap, but I'm not that old to be sitting and snoring.  

Oh,m how I wish, oh how I wish that I had a cat or a dog.  

So when it's raining, I have a friend.  

It's raining cats and dogs.  

Today's almost over.  

Tomorrow I hope and pray that I could be out in the sun having fun. 

Shane Green: 

isPodcast is brought to you by Independent Schools Victoria. It's produced by Duncan MacLean and presented by Michael Broadstock, Natalie Moutafis, and me, Shane Green. Our podcast scene is composed and performed by Duncan, and there are transcripts of our show with links to what we've discussed at podcast.iseducation.com.au. Please follow us wherever you get your favourite podcasts. And while you're there, we'd love it if you could rate and review the show so more people just like you can find us.