Deputy Principal Operations

With a strong focus placed on our children’s digital safety, there are some controls that parents can implement to Apple Devices to monitor and control screen usage. When set up the features outlined below apply to all Apple devices on the child’s account. 

Setting up screen time

Apple’s Screen Time feature is a powerful tool for monitoring and controlling device usage. Please consider that while at school, student devices are connected to the Santa Sabina network, which has a firewall and website access controls. To set up Screen Time:

  1. Open Settings: on your child’s device, go to the Settings app.
  2. Select Screen Time: tap on Screen Time and then tap ‘Turn On Screen Time.’
  3. Set up as parent: follow the prompts to set up Screen Time as a parent. You’ll be asked to create a passcode to prevent your child from changing the settings.
  4. Set downtime: you can schedule downtime, during which only apps you allow and phone calls will be available. This is great for ensuring your child isn’t using their device during homework or bedtime.
  5. App limits: Set daily limits for app categories like social networking, games, or entertainment. This helps manage how much time your child spends on specific types of apps.
  6. Content & Privacy Restrictions: Enable these restrictions to block or limit specific apps and features on your child’s device. You can restrict explicit content, purchases, and downloads, and set privacy settings.

Further details can be sourced using the help pages at the Apple website.

Managing App Store purchases

If as a parent, you would like to have control of what apps your child can access, you can manage App Store Purchases, where parents must provide permission to the student to access apps:

  1. Go to Settings: open the Settings app and tap on your child’s account name.
  2. Select Family Sharing: tap on Family Sharing, then tap on your child’s name.
  3. Ask to Buy: Turn on ‘Ask to Buy.’ This feature sends a request to your device whenever your child tries to make a purchase, allowing you to approve or decline it.

Setting up content restrictions

With so much content available on the internet, it is vital that children and young adults access age-appropriate content.  You are able to manage this through setting up content restrictions. To do this:

  1. Open Settings: go to Settings and tap Screen Time.
  2. Content & Privacy Restrictions: tap on Content & Privacy Restrictions and enter your Screen Time passcode.
  3. Content Restrictions: here, you can set age-appropriate content restrictions for music, movies, TV shows, books, and apps. You can also restrict web content to limit adult websites or allow only specific websites.

While setting up restrictions at a device level is a great starting point, it is important for parents to regularly monitor children’s device usage and the apps that are being regularly accessed. From experience, children and young adults are very innovative in discovering ways to work around the restrictions, so regular monitoring of the Family Sharing account is important.

John Gilmore
Deputy Principal Operations