...to kick up a fuss because DS (7) was confronted with (soft) porn on school's iPad?

[allrightluv]

DS is 7. He and a friend were using the school's new iPads in class. His friend googled some explicit words and, hey presto, they stumbled across some soft porn... Luckily only breasts, butts but no genitalia. But still: This should't happen at school!!! Can't decide how enraged I should be about this...

Very, definitely contact them, they need to know.

Well they got what they asked google for, didn't they. I don't expect they were supposed to be messing around like that. Did they see anything worse than you would in a M and S advert?

mmmm. Would have to know more about the words googled and the websites that came up before I could get very enraged. Were you in class with him? Did you see the websites?

How did u find out about it? Are school aware of it?

There are perfume and shower gel adverts on the high street that show the naked body.. I wouldnt bother being enraged really unless it was actually porn.

Yeah - go in and give the school hell. Never mind your precious darling - obviously don't tell him off at all!

How did the teacher describe it to you?

Google 'images' isn't blocked.

Councils usually bar searches using rude words on the computer and won't display any results. You need to ask the school about this. They should not be able to search using rude words.

You should be speaking to your son rather than school

Just mention it to the teacher so she is aware and can double check the security.

There is no point getting het up over it as its something that isn't always as controlable as we might like.

I have lots of parental security on my pc's and tablets. More so than most because I am a childminder and the children use the equipment.

Imagine my horror when a child (luckily my own) googled "russian birds" for a birdwatching list he was compiling!!! The resultant pictures made me blush and some very hasty explanations to a 7 year old!!!

Hah! Welcome to the world. Kids laugh at school filter systems. Love that they can get through them that easily at 7 years old!

Use it as an opportunity to discuss appropriate use of the internet. The school can do very little about it, apart from ignore the internet altogether!

Informing the teacher and letting her use it as an opportunity to lecture the class would also probably be a good idea.

And, erm, let's hope somebody cracks this massive gap in the market soon. I would pay quite a lot of money for filter system that could properly block porn, and I suspect a lot of people would feel the same.

I would contact them, but not with rage but as a delicate heads-up.

As soon as we got a dictionary at school, we were on the penis page. This is very different of course, but this is the modern age :(

I would think they have closed settings on - I mean they must do, surely! - so the pics couldn't have been too bad.

The internet filters were set so high at the school I used to work in that we couldn't even google 'Essex' or 'Sussex' without the search being blocked. Yes, raise it with the school but not as a complaint.

Try teaching your son about what is and is not acceptable to look at on the internet instead of having a go at the school.

Tell them because they need to know that their child software isn't working correctly.

Mention what your son saw. But you don't need to be outraged. Just explain that he googled ....., and saw adult image results. Nothing else needs to be said, really, because it goes without saying that we don't really want kids accessing that type of thing.

I've always found calm and rational gets better results with schools!

No it shouldn't have happened but then they shouldn't have been googling explicit words, I know it was your ds's friend but then your ds didn't stop him.

Advise the school of the situation and advise that they need to improve their internet filters.

Mind you my ds new more than the teachers and was able to by pass the filters if he wished - although he didn't as he's not ready for looking at women's bits - yet!

It's very likely the school will have a firewall that blocks adult sites etc as well as other sites such as fb, twitter, YouTube. Usually it'll be the local authority that sets this up.

Unfortunately I know from experience in IT lessons, that sometimes inappropriate images get through the net.

I'd check with school that these settings are in place, and that the students were monitored so that they weren't browsing on inappropriate pages for too long.

And I'd tell your kid not to mess about in class!

Well, he told me, kind of nonchalant, and I looked up the words he and his friend googled, and it fit the description of what DS said they saw... Yes, it's not really worse than what you see on evening telly but still, a school computer should have some kind of filters/child care settings in place and one of the words used shouldn't definitely not have passed them... (They didn't look up "breast feeding")

If a kid at my school googled explicit words they'd have their Internet access revoked.

School Internet access tends to be filtered through an area Grid for Learning network, which takes care of most dodgy content but sometimes some slips through. The ICT coordinator needs to be informed so that whatever site it was that came up can be added to to the filter list.

One of my Y9s mistyped in the URL of a maths website the other day and got offered hot sluts in his area...while I was stood behind him! He was utterly horrified! These things, with the best will in the world, can happen if kids don't follow instructions carefully.

This just reminded of when my daughter was about seven or eight and wondered how to tell the difference between male and female dogs. I'm 101% sure that she will never google 'dog sex' again.

I'd mention it to school, just as a heads up that maybe their security needs tightening.

My eldest DD and her friend did the same thing at school last year, they did get some rather rude images up so I warned school in case any one else did it after she'd had the bollocking of her life