Communicating With Your Son
Communication is one of the most important issues for parents and their son/s. We have included some ideas and suggestions for making communication easy with your son.
In cases of emergency, contact can be made with your child through the individual House numbers or his Head of Residence. If it is during school time, contact could be made through Boarding Administration who can be contacted either by email: Boarding.Admin@scotch.wa.edu.au or via (08) 9460 6655.
Prior to commencing in the Boarding Community, it has been suggested that parents should discuss with their son when the best times would be for them to call each other. As the boys live in quite a structured environment there are certain times that are great for a chat and others that don’t quite suit. The times that we recommend are between 3.45pm and 5.45pm (if not a sport day) and after Prep until 8.20pm. Generally, mornings are very busy with boys having to wake up, get to breakfast, have a shower (hopefully brush their hair and teeth), clean their room and pack their bags ready for their day at school so this also might not be the most conducive time for you to pry out all the information you want from him.
Please also don’t be worried if your son doesn’t call you, this generally means that he has settled well and is enjoying his time. You are allowed though to ring your Head of Residence to ask him to give your son the hint that it might be time to ring home because Mum and Dad miss him.
The best methods we have found to communicate with your sons is by:
Mobile Phones
Mobile phones are permitted; however, a ‘Mobile Phone Policy’ sheet must be completed before use and returned to the Head of Residence or the House Mother. Mobile phones will be collected at bedtime each night and kept in the office.
Please be mindful of the amount of data that you provide your son with as we do not have the technology available to monitor your son’s internet use whilst using his own data network. Mobile phones can also be used as a ‘hotspot’ (create an internet connection), for your son’s laptop. This will allow him to connect to the internet without using our network, as the computer is now no longer on our network, we are unable to monitor how the computer is being used. If you control the amount of data he can use on the family account, this can limit his screen time.
Alternatively, parents can also choose to install Parent Control Apps to their son’s phone in order to have better understanding and control over their son’s internet and phone use. Apps can make it easy to track data usage and also make it possible to control the access to certain apps and create curfews for apps, screen time or internet use. A Parent Control App that has been recommended to us is called OurPact and is available on the Appstore.
Mobile Phones will not be permitted to be used in the Dining Room during Breakfast and Dinner nor are they allowed to be taken on any Interschool Recreation Activity.
Skype
As every boy has access to their own personal computer some families use Skype as an effective medium for communicating with each other. Skype is quite personal as both parties are able to view each other while talking. The other benefit of Skype is that it is relatively economical due to it being streamed across the Internet. Please be mindful not to call your son/s during Prep time as we try to limit distractions for both him and others
Letters and Postcards
Letters are an excellent method of communication and most boarding students look forward to receiving mail in the afternoons (and are disappointed if they don’t get any). Although a letter is not as immediate as a phone call, it has an advantage in that it can be very well thought out and can be re-read days, weeks and years later. In the settling in stage for new boarding students, letters can be much more helpful than phone calls which can make some feel homesick. Please encourage your son to write home as often as possible. Some stamped and addressed envelopes sent with your son may be helpful for letter writing activities.
When mail is addressed to a boarder, it should be addressed as in the following example:
Mstr IMA BOARDER
C/- Boarding Community – Middle School Residence Scotch College
PO Box 223
CLAREMONT WA 6910
The fortnightly newsletter is a means by which the Boarding Community tries to keep everyone up to date with what is happening for the boys while they are here with us. It will hopefully arm you with ‘topics of conversation’ that you can use to stimulate your chat with your sons, especially if they are not being very forthcoming with information!
We also use the newsletter as a place for you to find out other information regarding Boarding. It contains the calendar, weekly menus, a link to the sports pages and even a ‘forms section’. Here you can find all sorts of useful forms that you will need for permissions and policies, useful forms for Mouthguards and Name tapes, and travel forms.
Clan Blogs are written once a term by the Head of Senior School Residence – Clan head.
The newsletter can be accessed at https://home.scotch.wa.edu.au/scotch-boarding/ or via the Boarding icon that can be found at Home.Scotch.