School not taking note of creepy behaviour

Usually the other way round with girls and boys but, yeah, I dated boys 2-3yrs older and crushed hard on boys older still than that. Didn’t you?

Being a mum and nan to boys, I too sympathise with him.
We have no idea if what he wrote was sexual or in any way worrying, if it is, he needs help not being made to feel like a pervert. If it's normal lad stuff....hopefully it'll pass over quickly.

His so called friend, who shared the kids private files, is the one who should be feeling bad.

‘999, what’s your emergency’

op - a boy in my daughter’s school had a folder on his iPad where he had some (freely available) photos of girls and some notes on them like whether he liked them or not. arrest the ‘wee creep’

Sounds like you're more than happy to be part of a witch hunt involving a teenage boy. Poor kid - I bet school is a total nightmare for him.

What on earth do you expect the police to do? These images were not explicit, or the police would have already been involved. You essentially seem to want to punish this boy for a thought crime, which is creepy in itself.

If it’s in your locked diary under your pillow it’s between you and god, but I do think writing details about their location a bit weird, especially if you’ve got pics of them. If it’s a school iPad, or an iPad that’s brought into school it should absolutely not double as a diary. Lock your diary up and keep it under your pillow and that’s one thing, bring it into school and you’re asking for trouble. If my son did this I would definitely not be calling parents and telling them it’s not that bad, I’d be apologetic.

You're definitely not being unreasonable and I'd be rallying a group of parents who feel the same way (or the PTA if you have one) to sit down with the head about this as it's not on at all; especially the part that other children shouldn't "ostracise" him.

I really hope you don’t have children, especially daughters.

I think you are over reacting. It all just sounds a bit The Virgin Suicides, romantic rather than creepy. I also think that the boy who shared the images is the one to blame, not the boy who kept the diary.

Were you 15 and some of the boys 12?

I don’t believe you are making this up. I’m saying children are cruel and they quite often make things up to bully other kids. I’d speak to your daughter about doing so

So, are all the PP who have described writing down all sorts of weird stuff about their teenage crushes also “wee creeps”?

You have two options.

1. Take a hard line , complain, complain, complain … which will probably get you nowhere , and you might end up having to change schools.
2. Whatever happened, happened and you and your child will draw a line under it. However, your daughter can not be expected to be nice/kind to this other kid. Polite, “pass me the rubber “ kind of thing fine. They do not have to socialise, be friends , spend time together etc. She will not be threatened or punished for it.

Yep, a 15 year old fantasies are very different to an adults. I really feel for the poor lad.

But...we have no idea what he actually wrote; it could have been the most mundane of stuff, all we know is the photos of the girls were nothing he shouldn't have had.

Perhaps this is something the police should be made aware of? Especially as some of the girls are so young.
His parents should be removing his devices, not spending their time phoning around parents to bully them into accepting this behaviour.
The schools response is shocking.

It sounds like someone has screenshot his (modern equivalent of) diary and sent it to everyone. Absolutely awful behaviour and definitely worthy of a suspension. It’s bullying and some children have taken their own lives after being humiliated by their secrets being shared so widely.

I do understand it must be distressing for the girls involved. I wouldn’t like to know what people write in their diaries about me tbh. I don’t keep a diary any more but when I did I often used it to write down things I wouldn’t dream of saying to someone’s face.

And I wrote some pretty shocking stuff in my diary at that age too. Some truly nasty stuff about family and close friends. Lots of daft things about how to get a boy I had a crush on to fall in love with me, our future children’s names, even some magic love spells I’d found online! Pretty stalkerish by adult standards, but also a reasonably normal teenage fantasy life.

Sorry, but I wasn't sure if I'd understood it all correctly.

I'm not sure if "activities and clicks when no one is watching" means wanking and taking photos, for example, or if clicks are something technical that I don't know about.

School reminds kids not bully another child. This isn’t groundbreaking. What do you think should happen to the boy, who has already been hugely embarrassed and hasn’t done anything morally wrong - some publicly available photos and some notes? It’s the kind of thing people do in their own head/ iPad… but this is basically his diary being published. poor kid. Yea I see it’s made people uncomfortable And upset but they were never meant to see this!

It’s like when people were worried there was a way of seeing who’s viewed your Facebook profile… I knew girls who were obsessively combing through photos of guys they knew (when fb was mainly uni students and had every photo ever taken of a night out)

I’m a bit confused about what happened and how your DD is involved. It sounded like the school investigated properly. The boy who leaked it quite rightly was suspended, that was not his place to do so, if he was concerned he should have spoken to a member of staff. It sounds like it was passed around and several others are probably lucky to avoid consequences as they deleted it and quickly.

You will never know what happened or what is going on with the boy who wrote and kept the folders. It is confidential and quite rightly so. The problem is now is that rumours are flying around, I suspect he is being ostracised and it feels like there’s now a witch hunt going on.

If you want to help your child, you tell her to be polite to this boy, she doesn’t have to be friends with him, but if asked to work with him, she gets on with it professionally. You tell her don’t get involved with bullying and you stay out of it. You keep listening to her, and if anything is raised that sounds like a safeguarding concern, you report it in line with the school policy.

There are questions you could reasonably put to the school.

How, in future, will they prevent students from taking photos of classmates without their permission? Is there a need for better discipline around digital devices?

When they say 'no wrongdoing', does that mean they checked the content of the ipad, or just the screenshots that the other boy created and circulated?

What rumours?

Ask for reassurance that the girls, particularly the targeted ones, will not be expected to treat ipad boy with more than basic politeness. Obviously, they should not be bullying him. But nor should they be forced to be his friends.

Such common sense.

You seem intent on demonising this boy without any evidence or comprehension of the situation. I hope the boy who stole and shared data has been dealt with by the school as his actions were malicious. However, I think your attitude is vindictive and you seem intent on spreading malicious gossip. Young adolescents don't always know how to navigate relationships especially if they are ND. If you have concerns go and see the head and if you're still not happy take your daughter out of the school.

Some kids are creeps, being a child doesn’t mean he can’t be a creepy child. If it was my niece (my DD is much younger, but my niece is your age) I would be telling her to steer clear of him and trust her gut. I’d also be telling her if she ever catches taking photos of her to kick up a massive fuss in the moment, even if it’s “not a good time”.

Is this iPad a school iPad? If it’s a school iPad then it’s absolutely not the same as a diary and you can’t compare the two. I agree with you OP he is a wee creep and good on you for not going along with the school. Best your daughter and her friends avoid him, if he’s ostracised for being weird… oh well, that’s life.

Sorry, did the kids delete the screenshots in fear they would get in trouble or because the school explicitly told them to delete the screenshots?

Also can you give some examples of what the notes actually said?

Fgs… School also have to safeguard the boy (who, by having his content leaked by someone, could become the victim of bullying). If he has reported that your child has been mean to him, school are well within their rights to speak to your daughter about that. They are also doing the right thing by coming down hard on anyone with screenshots, to further minimise the risk of bullying.

Meanwhile, none of the students who are concerned about his files should be expected to be friends with him…

But, have a little understanding and maybe look up age-appropriate behaviours by Brook. A 15 year old boy may well have innocent fantasies. The iPad may well just be used as a sort of diary.

Let school and his parents deal with him. You deal with your child by telling her to keep talking about her concerns and to keep away from him.