Ararat's Marian College found itself in the middle of a social media scandal with ill-mannered TikTok accounts being made about fellow students.
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The matter has been resolved with the school's teachers, parents and students united moving forward.
Principal Carmel Barker said the school was focusing on "empowering" the school community to be very much a part of taking control back over some of these situations in the future.
"How the school responds and gets everybody on board to take part - that seemed to help us," Ms Barker said.
"There were a number of students who were really hurt and disappointed because they were either targeted or hated seeing what was going on.
"All schools deal with this, it is how a school deals with it from then on."
Ms Barker said the school appealed to both students and parents to help resolve the matter.
"We feel it is very much a three way shared responsibility within the school to protect children," she said.
"We got the most information from students who were empowered to look out for each other, it was really such a positive thing.
"That is the pathway we went and got parents and students, and staff on board with that was a great outcome for us."
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Ms Barker doesn't blame social media for the incident, however said social media provided many benefits.
"I have nothing against platforms such as TikTok, they have many positives but when those situations arise it is just about getting back to those values about protecting kids first," she said.
Ms Barker first addressed the situation in the May 2 Marian College newsletter.
"Social media provides many benefits in fostering community engagement and in keeping in touch with relatives and friends, especially when we cannot be together physically as we have experienced recently," it read.
"Unfortunately, there is also the potential to cause harm, especially when the user remains anonymous to bully, intimidate, ridicule and demean another.
"While those involved in the creation of these sites may be only a very small number of students, the impact can often have widespread impact."
Ms Barker said sometimes children will not disclose they are being bullied or harassed, or may not know how to respond and report the matter.
There are a number of websites with helpful information including esafety.gov. au and Cyberbullying (for parents at kidshealth.org).
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