Testimonial
Launceston Christian School
How Launceston Christian School brought its whole community together for digital wellbeing.
This testimonial shows how Launceston Christian School used one unified platform to give teachers confidence in the classroom, leaders better insight, and families the tools to support their children at home.
Summary
School Name
Launceston Christian School
Type
Christian, K-12
Location
TAS
Champion
Brad Robinson, Head of ICT
"I really wanted to go that next step — to be able to involve our teachers in protecting our kids in the classrooms, and to get parents in on that conversation as well. I thought Linewize was the sort of tool that would help us get there." - Brad Robinson, Head of ICT
From cyber safety education to early detection and intervention
As one of the leading independent schools in Sydney, Australia, The Sydney Church of England Grammar School (Shore) prioritises a comprehensive pastoral care program for its students, recognising the importance of digital resilience and fostering positive online relationships. Through character education, the school aims to develop well-rounded individuals by equipping them with essential skills to navigate both the online and offline worlds.
Shore understands that while the online and offline worlds are connected, transferring offline skills to the online space is not easy. So, for them, teaching students the significance of engaging positively and productively in their digital interactions is crucial, especially since much of students’ learning and socialising happens online.
For Shore, education plays a pivotal role in providing these necessary skills. As part of this effort, the school conducts Linewize ySafe sessions to educate students on their online safety, equipping them with relevant skills and promoting responsible digital citizenship.
What Shore wasn’t seeing: navigating the challenges of online Interactions
Shore believes in a holistic approach to student digital wellbeing. And while they were adept in educating students about the online world, they also recognised the importance of equipping their staff with the tools to better help students. A way to do this was by providing them with visibility into what their students were doing online.
As with most schools, Shore had a significant challenge in gaining visibility into students’ online activities. They recognised that incidents often took place in spaces that were inaccessible to staff, and although they worked with families and the students themselves to gain insights, this resulted in an incomplete picture.
As a result, staff were unable to intervene effectively, and implement solutions that addressed the problems they were seeing, without considerable time spent investigating, which took them away from their core responsibilities.
"It’s really challenging to get visibility on what happens online with your students. These things are happening in a place you don't have access to. Which means you spend so much time time trying to find out ‘things’, they often you don’t get the opportunity to act appropriately and help what student."
How Shore uses data to:
Inform their overall Student Care Plan
Data is an integral part of Shore’s pastoral care and wellbeing strategy. It helps them identify potentially concerning or risky trends and patterns of behaviour, enabling them to intervene in a timely way.
The availability of granular data also substantiates conversations and better informs their student support intervention plans. Findings from trend data assist the school to source speakers with relevant expertise and to implement initiatives that address specific student concerns.
Get a holistic picture of each child’s wellbeing
In addition to academic and absenteeism information that most schools collect, Shore now also gathers specific insights from their Linewize solutions around what their students are searching for, who may be potentially at risk and how they are tracking in the online world.
Linewize Monitor helps them understand the context and interactions their students are having. A human moderator assesses cases that need immediate attention and promptly notifies the school if necessary.
By understanding the broader context of each student’s situation, the school is able to tailor effective recommendations to help get students back on track. In certain cases, they may request additional details from the student, consult with parents, involve other teachers, or engage relevant students connected to the situation. This collaborative approach ensures the identification of the most suitable resolutions, tailored to each student’s unique circumstances.
Measure Program Effectiveness
Data analysis enables Shore to measure the effectiveness of its pastoral programs. Examining the frequency and themes of online incidents has helped the school refine and enhance its strategies, ensuring they align with the evolving needs of each individual student.
Distribute ownership and equip the whole school community
Shore understands that a holistic strategy must empower the whole school community to be an instrumental partner in the digital safety and wellbeing of their students. The school equips parents and guardians with relevant information, guiding them to have regular conversations with students. This has helped foster a collaborative environment at Shore, where everyone works together towards the students’ overall wellbeing.
The challenge
Launceston Christian School (LCS) is a K–12 school in northern Tasmania. Brad Robinson has led its ICT for nine years, and in that time the challenge of keeping students safe online has grown considerably more complex. The school already had a filtering solution in place, one that could restrict what students accessed on campus. But once students left at the end of the day, that protection stopped. Parents had no tools to help them be part of their child's digital world at home. And in the classroom, teachers were largely on their own when it came to managing devices and keeping students on task.
For Brad, the gap was clear. Filtering alone wasn't enough. The school needed something that could bring teachers into the picture, give parents a role, and create a genuinely connected approach to digital safety across the whole community
The turning point
What stood out to Brad about Linewize was not just the filtering capability, but the promise of a genuinely unified approach: filtering, classroom management tools for teachers, integrated parental controls, and access to expert resources, all working together under one partnership. For Brad and the leadership team, the question was never simply "how do we roll this out?" It was "how do we use this to build something that genuinely changes outcomes for our community?" The answer required getting everyone on board: IT, teaching staff, school leaders, and critically, the parents.
Making a difference across the community
The impact of Linewize Connect has been felt differently by different people at LCS, but the thread running through all of it is the same: less time managing, more time connecting. In the classroom, teachers can set students an online task knowing they only need a few minutes to check and settle activity, then get on with what they are actually there to do.
"It's really important for me to be able to focus on teaching rather than just managing what students are doing. I only really have to spend the first five or so minutes checking and then I can focus on going around and supporting students with the task." - Nathan Guy, Year 7 Core Teacher & Coordinator
For school leaders, the platform helps hold a tension that every device-enabled school knows well: wanting students to be genuinely equipped online, while keeping them safe within it. Phill van Ryn, Head of Primary, watched a teacher lock students to a single site mid-lesson, keeping learning on track while removing everything else.
"I liken it to putting a big bowl of lollies in front of kids and saying you can only have one type. Putting that responsibility on a child is really hard. Most adults can’t handle that. So to be able to say: we trust you with this much, but we don’t want to expose you to things you don’t need, that’s what I like about Linewize. " - Phill van Ryn, Head of Primary
Bonnie Armstrong, Head of Secondary, puts the same tension plainly. “The internet gives students access to the whole world, which means, without the right safeguards, the whole world has access to them.”
Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of LCS’s approach is how far it extends beyond the school gate. Scott Black, both a parent at LCS and its Assistant Head of Secondary — sees digital safety not as a school policy but as a shared community commitment. Having visibility of how his son engages online means he can have better conversations, step in when needed, and help build good habits. But what matters most is knowing the whole community is working from the same values.
"A community approach is really important. It’s not just when my son is at home on his device, but if he’s visiting friends, knowing those safeguards are still in place. Knowing I’m part of a community that upholds and instils those values is fantastic." - Scott Black, Parent & Assistant Head of Secondary
Looking ahead
For Brad, the focus going forward is on wellbeing. Equipping students not just with filtered access, but with the wisdom to navigate the digital world as they grow up and move on. The goal is not a tighter set of restrictions. It is young people who know how to make good decisions online.
What gives Brad confidence is the sense that Linewize genuinely understands what schools are trying to do, and that this is not about putting up roadblocks, but about protecting children and setting them up for the rest of their lives.
