Site Policies

Please be advised that:

Information on this website may contain inaccuracies or typographical errors. Information may be changed or updated without notice. This web site does not constitute an offer or contract.

Sunshine Coast Grammar School makes no representations whatsoever about other websites which you may access through this one. When you access a non-Sunshine Coast Grammar School web site, please understand that it is independent from Sunshine Coast Grammar School, and that Sunshine Coast Grammar School has no control over the content on that web site.

The material contained on this website is for informational purposes only. Sunsine Coast Grammar endeavours to update the information on this site on a regular basis, but cannot guarantee its accuracy at all times.

Federal Privacy legislation regulates the way schools can collect, use, keep and disclose personal information. Sunshine Coast Grammar is obliged to handle personal information in accordance with National Privacy Principles as outlined in the legislation.

Personal information

The School collects personal information from students, parents/guardians in the course of a student’s enrolment and subsequent attendance at the School. Additional details are collected through contact and interaction with members of the wider School community. The School will advise its constituents (or it will be obvious from the information sought) why information is collected, when it is collected and how the information will be used.

The School collects personal information arising from emails or from visitors to the School’s website. It may also acquire information from agents or service providers or from other public sources, published information or publicly available documentation. In some circumstances the School may be provided with personal information about an individual from a third party, for example, a report provided by a medical practitioner, an educational professional or a student’s record from another school. If you provide personal information about another person, legislation requires you to inform that person you have done so and provide them with a copy of this policy.

Use of information

The School collects personal information such as name, address, telephone/mobile number, email address and, in some instances, other sensitive information to:

  • keep parents informed in relation to their child’s schooling
  • sustain day to day administrative and operating procedures
  • maintain students’ educational, social and medical well being
  • communicate between the School and its community
  • satisfy the School’s legal obligations and discharge its duty of care to all students
  • provide you with information and services which may interest you as a member of the School community.

The School may disclose personal or sensitive information held about an individual to:

  • another school, as required
  • government departments
  • medical practitioners
  • people providing services to the School such as special visiting teachers, sports coaches, counsellors, etc
  • another person/s you authorise the School to disclose information.

Sensitive information

Sensitive information incorporates details such as a person’s racial or ethnic origin, membership of political party, political opinion, religion, membership of a trade union, professional or business association, sexual preference, criminal record or health information.

As a general principle the School will only collect sensitive information where it is pertinent to provide adequate educational services or to sustain the School’s duty of care to its students, for example, collecting health information. Sensitive information will be disclosed only for the purpose for which it was provided or for a related secondary purpose or as allowed by law unless you have agreed otherwise.

Security

The School strives to ensure the security, integrity and privacy of personally identifiable information and to secure personal information from misuse, loss, unauthorised use or disclosure. Electronic security is maintained using a variety of security measures including firewalls, coded and restricted access to data and data bases, password access, secure servers, encryption of credit card transactions, etc. These measures are complemented by a range of security controls and selected keycard access to restrict personnel access to offices, records and file storage areas containing personal information.

School community members should be conscious that no Internet data transmission can be guaranteed to be totally secure. Any information posted on bulletin boards and/or communicated in ‘chat rooms’ or via live dialogue could be accessible externally. While the School strives to protect and respect persons’ privacy and the confidentiality of information it cannot guarantee the security of such publicly presented information.

Use of aggregated data

The School collects information from online inquirers or visitors to the School website.

The School may use identifiable information to improve the School’s educational services or to advise you of new services or updated information which may interest site visitors. This contact could include ‘chat rooms’ or direct on-line dialogue although the website user retains the right to terminate such interaction with no further disclosure of details nor giving a reason for such termination.

The School may collect certain non-personal information, for example, the identity of your Internet browser, the type of operating system you use, your IP address and the domain name of your Internet service provider. The School may use such non-personal information for internal site development purposes, including but not limited to, improving the content of the School website or to more widely communicate its educational services.

Certain electronic aids, such as web beacons, clear gif technology, single-pixel gifs, etc may be used to compile aggregated statistics about website usage. Aggregated website statistics may be used in conjunction with partner companies but the School will not allow other organisations to place such monitoring devices on the School website.

The School may use personally identifiable information in aggregated form to improve the School’s educational services and website details or to maintain communication to its community. The School may use such statistical information for marketing, promotion, advertising or research purposes.

While the School may sent information from third party suppliers at no time will it disclose personal information, email addresses, etc to those third parties. If you do not wish to receive such information please advise the School.

Online links to third party or co-branded websites

In the course of extending its community and network affiliations the School may establish relationships with business partners to enable visitors to the School’s website to link with these partner sites. Such inter-connectedness enables School website users to directly and conveniently link to organisations which have an authorised affiliation with the School, for example, business sites associated with the School’s City Links partner companies or organisations. These sites may collect personal information from you that may not necessarily be shared with the School. The School has no agreements with outside organizations to collect personal information via the School website.

The School is not responsible for the content or practices of such third party websites although they may be "co-branded" with the School name, crest or appropriate identification. Convenient hyperlinks to third party websites do not constitute sponsorship, endorsement or approval of the content, policies or practices of such sites by Sunshine Coast Grammar. Once you have left the School website via such a link the School’s privacy policy no longer applies. You should check the applicable privacy policy of the third party website.

What else you should know about privacy on the Internet

Close your browser when you have finished your user session to ensure others cannot access your personal information and correspondence if you share a computer or are using a computer in a public place like a library or Internet café. You are responsible for the security of and access to your own computer.

Personal information voluntarily disclosed over the Internet may be collected and used by others. Personal information posted in publicly accessible online forums may result in you receiving unsolicited messages from other parties in return. You are solely responsible for maintaining the secrecy of your username, password and any personal account information or records. School-hosted chat lines or on-line forums will be operated along secure lines, and in accord with the terms and conditions specified by the School. In certain circumstances such on-line interchange may be unsupervised.

Website/email information processes

The School web server automatically recognises the domain name and records certain user-specific information such as time spent on the website, entry pages and page ‘hits’ to the website. Other information that may be volunteered from time to time such as survey information, user details and/or site registrations recorded through on-line booking procedures may also be recorded.

This statistical data is used to improve the website, to customize its content and/or the site layout, to measure the appropriateness of School communications and to update and improve user information onto the website.

Persons who supply information on-line may receive electronic contact from the School with information regarding new educational services, upcoming events or to facilitate interchange regarding the School’s educational offerings. If you do not wish to receive such contact send an e-mail to the website address, contact the School by telephone or write to the School.

From time to time, the School may use customer information for new, unanticipated uses not previously disclosed in our privacy notice. Changed information practices will be posted to the website and appropriate procedures will be published to enable you to opt out of these new uses, if you so choose. If you are concerned about how your information is used, you should check on the website periodically.

Cookies

Cookies are data that a website identifies for record-keeping purposes and statistical tracking. The School uses cookies to record user-specific information on the web page users’ access, visiting patterns, site access times, etc and to assemble website activity data to provide better service, to customize web page content based on visitors' browser type or to assemble other information provided by the visitor. Cookies can facilitate a user's ongoing access to and use of the School website. Cookies allow the School to track usage patterns and to compile data to improve the website’s content and its serviceability to the School community. Cookies may be necessary to provide website users with features such as merchandise transactions, tuition fee payments or on-line booking services, etc. Such services may no longer be supplied if you choose to disconnect cookies through your Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer, etc. browser.

Your rights to access personal information held by the School

Under the Commonwealth Privacy Act an individual has the right to obtain access to any personal information which the School holds about them and to advise the School of any perceived inaccuracy.

To make a request to access any information held by the School write to:
Privacy Officer
372 Mons Road
Forest Glen QLD
4556 Australia

The School can be reached via e-mail at enquiries@scgs.qld.edu.au
or by telephone 61 7 5445 4444 or fax 61 7 5445 4345

Sunshine Coast grammar (SCGS) has a fully networked computer system with students having access to about 200 terminals throughout the school.

This network allows students and teachers access to common resources from any terminal within the school, including word-processing, database, graphics, spreadsheet programs, reference materials, learning objects, multimedia presentations, computer-assisted learning CD_ROMS , the Internet and, in certain circumstances, email.  It also gives them the benefit of keeping their own work on the network for ease of access. 

We provide this service to teachers and students to promote educational excellence at SCGS by facilitating resource sharing, innovation and communication using the latest technologies. The students will be using the network to create, store and publish their work and will use the Internet to access information, be involved in online projects and communicate with fellow students from all over the globe and to share what they have learned..

the acceptable use policy

We believe  that introducing students to the vast resources of the Internet should be a partnership with parents, students and the school. We also believe that the access we are giving is a privilege and not a right, and therefore there are responsibilities for all involved. 

In accordance with the Queensland Department of Education this policy outlines mandatory procedures for all staff and students in the acceptable use of computing and external networking facilities, including the Internet. Each school is expected to implement the Schools' Code of Practice for acceptable use (a separate document). 

An Acceptable Use Policy identifies acceptable uses of the SCGS network and the Internet and those which are not.  It involves issues of

  • educational usage

  • student safety

  • online conduct

  • email

  • privacy

  • intellectual property

  • password protection

  • hacking and piracy

This policy is provided so that you are aware of the responsibilities that come with access to the network and Internet.

responsibility of the school

At SCGS, teachers take all reasonable measures to ensure that students do use the computer network correctly. They:

  • provide activities that maximise the benefits of the network and the Internet to enrich and enhance their classroom programs

  • minimise the potential for inappropriate use of the network,

  • follow security procedures to prevent unauthorised access to the computing network, including using department site-filters which minimise the risk of accessing inappropriate material

  • supervise students using the network (i.e. when students are on-line the computer screen can be seen by the teacher or another adult),

  • teach children the correct use of equipment and correct online etiquette including respecting the privacy of other students' work, email procedures (when available for specific projects), and the need to keep their personal information private.

  • pre-select the sites we want students to use and provide links to these directly from our school website

  • ensure the students know how to search safely and effectively and how to exit from an inappropriate site immediately

  • encourage the students to alert us immediately if a link on a pre-selected page takes them to an inappropriate site so that we can remove the link and contact the site owners to express our concerns

  • help the students learn to evaluate sites using a variety of criteria

  • adhere to the concept of intellectual property and moral rights and ensure students know what is meant by copyright and how to cite works appropriately

responsibility of students/users

As a user of SCGS’s computer facilities and network students must remember that this is a privilege and not a right. They are asked to accept an important responsibility that comes with having access to the computer network and Internet. Because our students are under 18, parents / carers must sign this form on thier behalf.

Acceptable use includes the following:

  • being co-operative by using the network and Internet to complete activities related to your class work and education

  • being caring by assisting other students to do the right thing and learn new skills 

  • being courteous by leaving the computers so they are ready for the next user

  • being considerate by doing what is right and informing a teacher when there is a problem of any kind,

  • being careful by using the following network etiquette:
    • creating and editing only your own work
    • respecting the privacy and integrity of other students' work
    • keeping our student logins and passwords private and protected
    • keeping your own identity private and protected
    • being polite in your messages if you using email
    • using appropriate language and checking your spelling and punctuation before sending (remember you are representing our school)
    • knowing that work not created by you is not yours and if you do copy and paste parts of someone else's work you must acknowledge where you got it from

Unacceptable use includes the following:

  • interfering with the work of other users of the network, 

  • seriously disrupting the network, 

  • transmitting or deliberately accessing material which
    • may be harmful emotionally or physically (e.g. instructions to make a bomb),
    • is in bad taste,
    • puts another person down (e.g. which contains profane or sexist language, or any other form of discrimination)
    • contains sexually explicit material,
  •  violating  the privacy of others, e.g. changing or vandalising their work,
  •  violating Commonwealth, State or Territory laws,
  • communicating any information concerning any password, personal identification e.g. addresses, phone number or other confidential information, without the permission of the owner or the controlling authority of the computer facility to which it belongs,
  • creating, modifying, executing or re-transmitting any computer program or instructions intended to gain unauthorised access to, or make unauthorised use of, a computer facility, software or licensed software,
  • using the network for commercial activities such as distributing advertising material,
  • accessing or intentionally destroying software or licensed software in a computer facility without the permission of the owner of such software or licensed software or the controlling authority of the facility,
  • making unauthorised copies of licensed software.

In the circumstance where these regulations are broken,  firm and reasonable action will be taken. 

For first offences a user will lose access to the network or Internet for no less than a week and the parents informed. 

For repeat offences a student will lose access for no less than a term and parents will be informed. 

The decision in such matters of what is inappropriate use and the accompanying penalties is with the class teacher, the principal and the network administrator and their decision is final.