Should I report a whatsapp group to my son’s school ?

Of course report and don't let an 11 year old use social media

Do you think they haven't thought of that, over a month ago?

Similar happened with my son too - it's not the school's responsibility to sort this out I am afraid.

school have enough to deal with and it's outside of school - imagine if they had to get involved with every social media incident!

@M2BANTRIM just read your update. I'm shocked. That Principal/Head is really not doing what should be done.

I'd escalate it if it were me and get others involved who will have to take it seriously and put a proper plan in place. Has the Head even seen the messages?

I would not hesitate to report this. Hope it goes well. I'm sure the school will take it seriously as not only can it lead to a child getting in trouble for their words/actions and any threats etc., but also can easily make a child vulnerable/a target etc. Good luck.

This is horrific, tell the police not just the school!

M2BANTRIM I’ve only just seen your update and just wanted to say I for one am glad you did try. Hopefully some parents will now become aware and maybe more than can be hoped might take action to stop their child being party to this.

@Pottedpalm they didn't speak to every child in the year - only to the ones seen to participate in / share questionable materials etc - which was maybe a handful.

You don’t think that having 1:1 conversations with possibly50 or more children would be time consuming? All
such meetings have to be fully documented and records kept.
I can’t imagine there is a school
in the land that hasn’t already had assemblies/workshops/pshe discussions on this topic, but still groups ate formed and children are bullied on them. School cannot solve this problem.

Screenshot all the vile messages and send them into the school.

I teach in a secondary school and evidence like this means we can tackle the issue!

@abeeabeeisafterme I'm not absolving parents of responsibility when it comes to managing kids behaviour online, nor have I suggested it's up to the school to manage it. The point of Safeguarding is, however, to consider what may be going on between kids in and outside of school to a large extent, or simply what may be going on in a child's life outside of school that could harm their welfare. It's shocking how many parents still seem to have no idea about what can happen on these groups or anywhere online and it doesn't take that much work for the school to remind people.

My daughter's school's response was swift and wasn't particularly complex or time-consuming: they sent out an email to all parents, held a special assembly and they didn't punish individual children as such but took the time to have 1:1 conversation to remind them of the seriousness of what they were doing and that it could get them in trouble with the school. When I spoke to the Safeguarding Lead, she was glad to see that a parent was monitoring things and we both agreed that at that age, a lot of it was immature showing off.

The OP's school is just washing its hands off the whole thing, to the point where I wonder what is the point of its Safeguarding Lead. I can only assume that things must be really bad / understaffed at that school if they can't approach the situation in the same way as my daughter's school.

@glowfrog
You overestimate the power of a headteacher. They are not their to police parents and parenting decisions. Their decision of how to respond is not because they're overwhelmed, it is a considered response within their remit. And consider that some parents won't want the staff being considerably distracted managing kids WhatsApp groups on phones, but rather they do their jobs.
Unfortunately this comes down to irresponsible parenting. On slot of parents parts. But it's not a headteachers job to parent or police them. Parents need to keep their children safe online, especially if giving them illegal age-inappropriate access.

@M2BANTRIM I am appalled by the response you got from the headteacher. No doubt they are swamped with other things and understaffed and all that, but when I reported similar messages (along with homophobic insults and memes) I found on a group chat my daughter was on, the school did a special assembly and spoke separately to the kids who were saying / sharing this stuff and it was very effective.

If you can find it in yourself to demand a meeting with the Safeguarding Lead, I would. This isn't good enough.

I knew things could get bad on WhatsApp but it was a real shock having to deal with this within 2 weeks of my daughter starting secondary school.

Totally agree.

There are a few disingenuous posters on this thread who cant possibly work out why sending a picture of a black boy with bulging eyes to one of the TWO black boys on a chat could be racist 🙄

Either you're very stupid, i.e don't have a working brain at all or you're a flat out racist for making that comparison 🙄

I would go ahead and pass on the info to police and SS too . Some if what you describe is serious .

I'm struggling a bit with the picture with your son's name on it? If someone sent my son a picture of a white boy with his name attached, my mind wouldn't jump straight to racism.

We’re not comparing apples to apples here. As white people, we haven’t been historically mistreated on the basis of race. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for people of African or Caribbean descent (and, quite frankly, not ‘historically’—within my lifetime). I’ve personally witnessed a lot more racism than I’d ever want to see, particularly this day in age, so in my opinion, OP makes a valid point.

🤦🏼‍♀️ seriously?! You are drawing that equivalence? 😭

Also remember schools shouldn't be telling you what sanctions they have given other pupils, so they may be dealing with certain pupils if you gave them names

@Chatonette the school have said they are going to include something in the school newsletter, so they might do exactly what you have received.

The school is right they don't have control over children's own devices, so they can't police what Apps they have on them, that is down to parents. But I am sure they will talk to children about online safety and racist/sexual bullying

Alternatively you could privately speak of the record to the press about what these kids are saying online and the little and poor reaction that you got from the school involved and ask them to get parents to check their children’s social media accounts not just for your children’s school but generally as you never know what sharing these days on social media 😱it’s a scary thought and something needs to be done about this!
obscene images, threatening messages to other children, ordering other children to kill themselves when doses someone take a stand and say it has to stop Now!?
when will they learn that they can’t keep doing this and their actions will have consequences eventually for their victims their families and themselves and their families!!

It’s a real shame they dropped the ball. They could have acted, but chose not to. Here’s an email I received from our school (I’ve made some redactions):

Dear Parents / Carers,

It has been brought to our attention today that many of our Year x students who have WhatsApp have unfortunately been exposed to what we believe was xxxxxx material.
This was as a result of being in a large chat group that did not appear to have a name, other than a group of xxxx emojis.
The group appeared to have members from several different schools and some of our children here reported that they did not purposefully join the group but were added to it by others. We have taken the appropriate steps to report the content.

There are two helpful links here:

Changing privacy settings - this will help you to stop your child being added to groups by other people without consent

A parents' guide to WhatsApp

Furthermore, WhatsApp does have a user age of 16 so it would be worth considering whether you feel they should have WhatsApp on their devices at all; please do continue to check your child's phone on a regular basis and hopefully we can avoid any further upsets.

We are proud of the students who came forward to report this incident; if your child reports that they did come to speak to a trusted adult please do praise them.

If you’re not happy with the re response you still have the option to either take it to the social Service’s or the police department but I’m afraid police might say it’s a school district matter 😱😡 despite the content and concerns of possible grooming 🙄 same with social services it depends on who you get, and their resources 🙄😱😡unfortunately however unacceptable it is! And despite these hypocritical failures leading to more grooming issues 😡

You may feel dispirited but I can assure you that there will be serious words said in Assembly on Friday!

You still have the option of going to the police for hate crime. They will also involve the school. You would need screenshots for this. And you could mention that the school is aware.

The "oral" comment - hopefully the school have alerted their Safeguarding team. If you know the name of the child you can report it to your local Safeguarding Team who will fully investigate independently of the school. "Oral" is illegal under 16 these days.

Oh, and if your screenshots happen to have any timecodes within school hours...

I would email the school and just clarify what was said in your phone conversation and ask them to verify this

100% always do this.