Issue No. 31 (3 May 2019)

Welcome to another term at SIS! We hope you have all had a wonderful Easter break, during which you have managed to balance any work objectives with a well-earned rest.

This is a very important term for our Year 11 and Year 13 students, as they launch into their IGCSE and IB exams. For the next few weeks, of course we know that our students will be revising hard. Equally, it will be crucial for them to take a break when they need one – so all of our students should make sure that they allow themselves sufficient leisure time during this high pressure phase of the year! Regular sleep patterns and appropriate diet are also very important. Please encourage your son or daughter to speak with us if they are finding things difficult.

For students in other year-groups, this is an equally important time for their learning. It is during these years that the foundations of knowledge, skills and understanding are built for their subsequent success. We know that our students understand this, and that the vast majority will take every single learning experience seriously, however big or small.

We wish you all a highly successful term!

As you know, we take student safety very seriously. ESF have recently run a number of training sessions about child online safety, and we are very aware of the dangers open to young people through social media. We recently ran an assembly for our Year 9 students about accepting diversity and being aware of how you are represented on media. This was aimed at raising awareness of actions and how they affect people. This was in response to a nasty Instagram message going around that asks students to rate other students looks and popularity, even requesting them to add photos of themselves.

Unfortunately, since then we have become aware of a further unpleasant online platform, as students in Year 10 and 11 have recently reported a ‘who is hotter?’ app that has Year 10 and Year 11 girls’ photos on. Students are understandably upset that someone has published their photo in this way without their consent. However, what is good is that our students are being proactive in asking for help to stop these inappropriate actions. We are doing everything we can at the present time to have this website taken down.

ESF have also alerted us to another app that is causing a lot of concern in the UK, ‘Tik Tok’. Here is an article citing NSPCC research with 40000 children, which states that one in 20 of those who used Tik Tok were asked to take their clothes off whilst streaming on the app. We are not so far aware of anyone at our school who is using this but wanted to take this opportunity to warn you about it.

https://www.cnet.com/news/tiktok-live-streaming-apps-are-hunting-ground-for-abusers-warn-childrens-advocates/

We all share the common objective of keeping your children safe. Please help us with this objective by checking your child’s devices for any of these unpleasant online platforms.

Annette Chapman
Vice Principal