New Zealand Schools Online Safety Policy Guidance

August 4, 2021

The New Zealand Ministry of Education requires all schools and kura to develop and regularly review school policies. Policies form the foundations of a school’s operation and identify key obligations. They state a school’s commitment to providing safe learning environments for students and staff and inform school processes and procedures to ensure consistency. Linewize has put together guidance to assist New Zealand schools in reviewing and formulating an online safety policy.

Online spaces and digital devices play an increasingly important role in learning, highlighting the need for schools to acknowledge their online safety approaches and strategy in their policy documentation. The policy guides internal processes and procedures and consistency across the school.  

Some schools and kura opt to update existing policies around wellbeing, bullying and health & safety to include online safety. More recently, however, there has been a shift towards schools developing explicit documentation to guide the safe, responsible and informed use of digital devices and online spaces within the learning environment.

Our team of education specialists and cyber experts have created an Online Safety Policy template (see below) to help schools ensure they have updated and relevant information in place.  The template includes specific guidance around the Linewize solutions. While our policy template can be used in its entirety, we strongly encourage all schools to customise it to suit their unique context and needs. The process of customisation should involve consultation with the wider school community.

 

Developing your school policies

To support schools and kura wishing to review & update an existing policy(s) or develop a new policy around online safety and wellbeing, we have created a checklist that you can follow. Key actions to undertake before the policy review or development process have been identified, along with a checklist of key areas schools need to include. You can download the checklist below.

 

New Zealand Online Safety Policy Template

We strongly recommend that this template is customised to fit the unique context of each school. The template includes specific guidance around Linewize solutions. You can download the template in either Word or PDF format - whichever best suits your purposes.

 

          

 


Are you unsure of how to best utilise these resources?

Join Pauline, Matt and Toni as they discuss why these policies are critical to school cyber safety and how your school can adapt and utilise the Online Safety Policy template to suit your needs.

 


Topics: Cyber Safety, online safety, Staff, Policy

Would you like some more information? Or a demo?
Get in touch
Subscribe to our newsletter
Follow us on social media
Popular posts
Cyber Safety | Cyber Experts | screens in school | classroom management | digital citizenship | partner school program
Linewize Classwize: Your superpower for managing student internet
Cyber Safety | Cyber Experts | self-harm | hoax | suicide | momo
The Momo Challenge: What schools need to know
Cyber Safety | Cyber Experts | classroom management | vpn | distraction | BYOD | hotspotting
Six ways students are hacking your firewall
Cyber Safety | Cyber Experts | fights | video recording | school administrator | Social Media
Students filming fights: How should schools respond?
Cyber Safety | grooming | Social Media | dangerous apps
A School's Guide for Managing TikTok

Recent posts

 
What Student Digital Risks Can Your School Expect in 2024?

Helping Australian Schools Better Safeguard Students This Academic Year

 
Navigating harmful content online: A guide to managing children’s exposure to distressing content online

In light of current international events, young people may come into contact with distressing online content. This article has been written ...

 
News about our name

We have some exciting news to share about our name.

 
Safer Internet Day 2023 - Easy ways schools can get involved

Tuesday, 7th February 2023, is Safer Internet Day, an excellent opportunity for your school to educate, inspire and empower your students ...