yr 6 possible sexting incident

[UncomfortableSecret]

Sorry about crap username, have NC for this and clearly this isn't a 'secret' as such.

Anyway. DS (10, yr 6 in small village school) remarked fairly casually this evening that a sometime-friend of his, a boy we'll call Sid (11), had sent a yr 6 girl (10) (let's call her Sue) some photos of 'his willy, he said 5 and one for luck'. And apparently had asked Sue to send Sid back a photo of 'her nakedness'.

DS didn't get this from either of the named children but from a mutual friend, but says 'everyone' (eg. probably about 4 children) was talking about it in class today. According to his source, Sue was not happy to receive the photos and deleted them.

I don't know if this is true. I don't know if it's partially true. I don't even know if we're talking emails, texts or app messages, as I don't know what devices said children have access to. But even if it's a pure rumour, I'm concerned that the children, Sue in particular, won't benefit from this sort of story going around. If it has a basis in truth then obviously it's a safeguarding issue. I have to talk to the school, don't I?

Sid seems to be maturing early and apparently talks frequently about his penis, which has a nickname ... and seems very preoccupied about girls and talks about asking them out, or to kiss him, etc (has been like this since at least September last year). Sid and Sue are known to the rest of the class to be 'boyfriend and girlfriend' (!) though god alone knows what that actually means - bugger all, I suspect.

But I'm not directly related to any of this. Are school going to take my concerns seriously or just brush them off because my child isn't involved (and didn't have this story first-hand)?

What, in short, is the correct response to having heard this 'news'?

I think say something, do you know any of the other parents involved? Definitely use it as an opportunity to talk about the topic.

You need to pass all of this on to the designated Safeguarding Officer at school ASAP. Sid’s behaviours could indicate that he is a victim of sexual abuse and Sue is at risk of sexual abuse. This is not normal by any means and you MUST report it to school first thing tomorrow morning.

I would talk to the school. We have had something like this and the parent notified us. We then spoke to the parents of the children involved so they could talk to their children. We also ran assemblies on being safe online and not bullying over text (which is usually what the issue is at my school).

Snitzel - no, I don't really know the children's parents. Well, I do have Sid's mum's number on my mobile from previous playdates etc, but I have.absolutely.no.idea how to broach this, and we're not matey at all. I think via school has to be the way - you're not meant to approach parents off your own bat, are you?

Shady - I know and yes, I'm worried about Sid too. I'm sure it's not normal but bloody hell, this is year 6 in a tiny village school and it's hit me between the eyes!

MyNameisMrG - you work in a school? Thanks - I just needed to know I'm not overreacting or being a drama llama. I'm hoping the class teacher might have a no-names chat with entire class about this sort of thing anyway, but would expect them to contact parents.

You aren’t overreacting, I’ve taught in schools and have dealt with issues like this. And you are right about not approaching the parents, this has to be dealt with by school in the appropriate manner.

You are doing the right thing

I do and you definitely aren’t over reacting.

Yes you should tell the shool

In school’s I worked in the children would be brought in for a meeting with a parent, the Head, Safeguarding Lead and often SENCO. Where possible we tried to do this before school to get full details. You could email tonight and it would get picked up first thing and possibly dealt with before school. We had a situation where we didn’t find out until images of a girl had been forwarded on to other people and there is a chance this could escalate too so time is of the essence. There will probably be a class chat but more serious one to one action needs to be taken too.

Teacher. Absolutely tell the school, ask to speak to HT when you phone and say it’s a safeguarding issue.

Thank you all for your responses - really helpful.

I went in early this morning and spoke to the class teacher. She was fairly horrified and is going to follow it up with chats to the children involved. And also I think have a general class talk about this issue to get them to understand what's inappropriate. Her reaction made it fairly clear she was going to treat it very seriously and act appropriately, so I think I now step back and let the school deal with it.

But clearly this is a conversation I need to have with my very innocent DS, who may well stumble across this sort of thing again before long. We've had a lot of talks about internet safety, trolling, bullying, stranger danger (and danger from people a child wouldn't necessarily regard as strangers) and what constitutes sexual abuse, but sexting was very much off my radar. A bit of a wake-up call, I suppose.

Thanks again for your advice!

I’m glad you got a quick response and you have definitely done the right thing. I hope the class teacher does not plan on dealing with this entirely alone as that would be inappropriate - it needs to be passed up to whoever is in charge of child protection/safeguarding, usually a deputy or head teacher.