PARENTS have been warned to expect a phone call if their children make homophobic slurs.
East Loddon P12 College principal Steve Leed said he hoped the sternly-worded message to parents would have a positive impact in maintaining the school’s respectful environment.
It comes as the school last week also supported a student who had been trolled on social media and threatened with claims about an explicit photograph.
“The most disappointing thing happening is that of students deliberately saying things to upset others,” Mr Leed said.
“From junior students asking friends to meet up in particular areas and then making fun of them, to senior students sling-ing homophobic slurs at peers as they walk past them. Others have gone out of their way to belittle students who have made errors of judgement. It is often the intent of the lan-guage that is being used and not necessarily the actual wording. 
“Basically, if a student or anyone else for that matter is setting out to deliberately upset someone, then we are not okay with it ... expect a call if we are made aware of an incident involving your child and a friendly chat at school does not lead to the change that we would like to see.”
Mr Leed said in the school’s newsletter last week that some students “have shown little to no regard for the feelings of others. East Loddon students have always been respectful individuals who receive a wonderful level of praise and positive feedback  and we have always been very proud of this. 
“Unfortunately, there have been a number of incidents of late which have been well and truly ‘un-East Loddon like’ and I am hop-ing that we can collectively ensure that this does not continue. Every student, staff member and college community member has the right to feel safe, full stop!
“Within the past week alone we have had a number of instances that have been disappointing. Students, like all others in the community, make mistakes from time to time, but it is important that we learn from these and show a definite endeavour to improve.”
Mr Leed, who a week earlier, had told parents that the use of mobile phones was not a requirement for students at school, also issued a warning on the risks of social media in strongly-worded statements to parents last week.
“I was approached by a very brave student this week who wanted to show me something that they had received on their mobile device,” he said. 
“We both found the content alarming! This young student had received a simple text message saying ‘Hey’. They replied by asking ‘Who is this?’ and within two further text messages the perpetrator of these messages had endeavoured to make the student feel incredibly insecure by alleging that they had explicit images of them that they were going to share with their friends and family. 
“The perpetrator was making firm demands as to what our young student ’had to do’ in order for the alleged images not to be sent. 
“The perpetrator referred to themselves as this students ’master’ and aggressively demanded that the student ’comply’ with their demands. Upon reading the screenshots that this stu- dent had captured, I felt sick at what this child had been  exposed to! 
“Luckily, this student had told their parent, taken screen shots of the messages, and had not provided any images or payments to the aggressor, as these are the sorts of things that some victims find themselves doing.”
Mr Leed said online abuse happened everywhere and did not discriminate with regards to geographical location, age or the like”. 
“Please have a discussion with your children about the potential dangers of social media and encourage them to be open with you,” he told parents. 
“Do not be afraid to implement measures around the use of  devices and please do not hesitate to speak to me if you would like a chat about this sort of thing,” Mr Leed said.