please help!

Bullying is never the victims fault, whatever form it takes.

How do you know something's offensive if you don't read it?

This happened to my DD. She was using FB on her birthday. A "friend" who didn't have FB happened to join it that day and DD, this "friend" and other friends were chitchatting away.

Suddenly the "friend" started getting nasty; making personal comments about DD, criticising things on her wall. DD was very upset and in tears. It turned out it was not the "friend" at all but somebody impersonating her. Later events led me to suspect that it was the mother of a child who was in her friendship group who bore a grudge against DD. Other incidents happened as well to other children who this woman had a problem with. I told the school about it only a couple of months later, as I had originally thought it was a another child in the class being malicious and they told me to go to the police. I did in fact do so but had deleted the posts immediately so there was nothing they could do except make a note of it.

Cyber bullying is real, it does hurt and if someone makes a concerted effort to hurt you, it is not as simple as turning your computer off.

Did I miss the OP mentioning that obscene pictures of a 12 year old had been circulated?

Obviously if that was the case then it would be a police matter since an underaged child was involved.

APMF - I tbhink that's naive in terms of schools. It DOES matter if someone is circulating obscenely photoshopped pics of a 12 yo girl to all and sundry in the school, whether or not she has her computer switched on.

I'm with the teacher on this one. If I see something on tv I don't like I switch channels or go to do something else as opposed to watch it and then spend time drafting a letter or writing a blog about why I was offended.

Similarly on MN I either hide a thread if I strongly disagree with the whole thread or I simply bypass the poster.

I certainly wouldn't waste time reading the offending posts and then going on about how people are being mean to me.

Yes I agree that schools should have zero tolerance as far a bullying in the Real World but I can't get too worked up over what happens in Cyberspace.

Oh blimey, I take it back. I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt but that is appalling. Yes, clarify the school policy with the Head. Most school leaders these days (should) recognise that social networking and the like are now an integral part of life which can't simply be switched off or ignored. The school should be able to help teach your child about safe usage of sites and mobile phones. Personally I think that Cyber-bullying is in many ways much worse because it is easy to carry out and spreads like wildfire.

That statement by the teacher betrays a sad lack of knowledge of cyber-bullying and what I would hope the school's policy on any kind of bullying is. You need to take this up with a written request to the head teacher for an explanation and re-assurance that this is not school policy.

Is there a learning mentor at the school that you can talk to? At the yr6 transition parents evening at DD's school they always cover cyber bullying. It sounds like you have misunderstood the advice from the school. Usually the advice is to be careful who you befriend on social network sites.

DD is young for her age and timid, but she has managed to avoid cyber bullying so far because I won't allow her a Facebook account and she has only given her mobile number out to real friends. I was really nervous about her moving schools, but she has made a new circle of friends and settled nicely.

What was the context of the comments made by the teacher OP? Was there anything else which made you uncomfortable about the school? It sounds like a thoughtless thing to say but I suspect that what s/he meant was that we all have a responsibility to police the usage of technology and that some students can render themselves vulnerable in the way they use certain sites, etc. I'm not agreeing with the point but I think it might have just been badly expressed.

SecretSquirrels, the OP might have been to a yr6/7 transition evening - my DD's school had one last week.

Onwards - I would email your concerns to the Head.

She starts in September and you just went to the open evening? Normally the open evenings are in October and then you apply after you have looked round. Have you applied to this school? If not I would look at others.