To think a local newspaper should not print full exam results

[petal2008]

Our local paper prints all the schools' a level and gcse results in their full glory, or not, as the case may be.

This is great for the A star pupils etc but I feel a bit sorry for those students who didn't do so well.

Not only have they possibly got the disappointment of the results but also the residents of the whole city and local villages seeing them as well.

Maybe you sign some sort of disclaimer with the school for them to disclose the results to the press, I'm not sure. I remember giving permission when my DC were at school for their photo to be published.

I just think it's not necessary.

No I am not backpedaling at all. How could I be when I have re-stated that I meant exactly what I said?

It's a hang over from when we had communities and people relied on the paper for news of neighbours 'births marriages and deaths.

Now we spout endlessly the most intimate details of our lives via social media but get he vapours at seeing public exam results in black and white.

It's a funny old world

The difference is, thebogqueen that people choose to put stuff on social media. Here someone is choosing to do so on behalf of a minor! without alerting them to it. As it happens, my DS did ok in his GCSEs. He still would hate to have his results to be picked over by all and sundry.

I'm sure you never post pictures or personal information regarding your son on Facebook or other social media without asking your son's permission.

In the end, this is public information. I don't think that sparing the blushes of some children is a good enough reason to, yet again, cut down on the amount if info in the public domain.

But what purpose does it serve TheBogQueen? if the exam results are public domain, what purpose is it for exept to embarras people who didnt do so well?

I did an exam at work that was in 2 parts, I passed 1 part and failed another. If people ask I tell them the results, I would have been mortified if the results were published in the work newsletter, but work would never do this so why should schools? It doesnt serve any purpose other than let nosey people gossip about the grades the neighbours kids have got

The full details have been published for over a century, I doubt the practice will stop soon.

What absolute rubbish, Nomama. A century ago, the school leaving age was 13 - only a tiny minority of very clever children stayed on till 16 and took public exams, so hardly comparable if results were even published. This is the first I have heard of this practice and I am 60!

Why not do it to congratulate the children that did well?

People's barometers of success are different - someone may have achieved just enough to get into training . Those results may not be stellar but a triumph nonetheless.

And I don't think people really do gossip about exam results. Not in my social circles.

Originally we would want to congratulate our community on the children it has raised. I don't think the expectation was that people would gossip or be unkind.

It's a hang over from when we had communities and people relied on the paper for news of neighbours 'births marriages and deaths.

At least people make their own BMD announcements to the papers. This sounds the equivalent of the hospital, vicar, or registrar making the anouncement.

I don't think it's in the public's interests to know each student's individual results. I think percentages are fine.
Sure, it's lovely if Suzie B from Station Road got 8 A*s but what's to be gained from publishing failures apart from humiliation for some?
Local Press should stick to Prom Photos IMO.

Gosh I'd hate this as a child and parent, and that's with kids who are able....

They have always done this ger.For GCSE it varies by school - ours prints not at A-C and then the no of As is brackets so J Smith 10(3) for example.For A level/AS they print the subject and a if it was ontained at A grade and * for an A eg J smith m mu fm B gs
It is not a data protection/confidentiality issue because they are public exams.

Erm not rubbish at all Cecily. If you do a bit of research you can probably find images of newspapers from the 1800s!

Apart from the fact I teach a Unit on Education History in the UK, the nascent NUT grew out of the Forster Education Act in 1870 as a response to the Revised Code, teachers salary were dependent upon results - so publishing them meant that the public could see where their money went, endowed schools could hope to increase their endowments etc.

A quick Google brings up quite a few hits. Even some from private schools about 400 years ago!

sorry they print '' for A grade and '' for A

The papers also publish them on their websites and you would have to be pretty quick off the mark to request your school not to send them in.They appeared there by11.30am yesterday!

My school did this I'm sure way back in the 80's

In ye olden days I'm fairly certain it's how people found out their results - you'd have to buy the paper

By the same token, newspapers can publish pictures of adults without their permission.

Newspapers can publish innocuous pictures of children without the consent of their parent. There are guidelines if the story is regarding the child's welfare and/or if child is on school property.

My local paper did this with GCSEs and A Levels. I never thought anything of it, but then I did well in my exams. At school, they used to post the results of the crosscountry running and the distance we could all chuck a shotput or javelin etc on the sports corridor notice board and I used to be thoroughly and regularly mortified then (typical result: "Shotput, no. 87 out of 89, Carmine Rose = 57 cm)! It was bad enough having that for the rest of the school to see, let alone the local townspeople.

saintlyjimjams If you wanted to know the result of some exams quickly you had to buy the paper. I passed my exams to be a solicitor in 1977 and there was a huge crowd outside The Times that Friday night at 10.00 p.m. waiting for Saturday's paper. They did not even take the money for it, they just gave everyone a copy and told you what page to turn to.

And a few minutes later the watering-holes of the parish were rammed with budding lawyers, celebrating or drowning their sorrows, as the case might be.

Nowadays they get a bloody email. Boring.

I remember my degree classification was printed up on a notice board at university. You could see what everyone got.

A couple of posters up thread have mentioned discharge records being published in the 1950s, or hypothesised about STD test results being made public... Along the same lines, my Dad reckons the local papers used to publish a weekly list of illegitimate babies born in the area! Does anyone else recall is? I'm not sure he isn't pulling my leg.

Gosh I've never heard of that

Fascinating tho if true

CarmineRose1978 Some papers used to print all local births and call the mother Mrs and name the father, or Miss and not, as the case might be. It sounds extraordinary now, but that's how the world has changed. I wonder what is being published now that will seem horrifying fifty years from now!

I still have the cutting from the newspaper of my O levels results in the 70s, all subjects and grades there with names in black and white for anyone to see. My DC were horrified when I showed it to them.

The school posted results to us - we had to provide a stamped addressed envelope - but if you wanted to find out on results day they were all stuck to the front door of the school for anyone to see.

No data protection issues in those days. I don't think it occurred to us that there was anything wrong, it was just the way it was done.

Oh it'll be

'My parents published humiliating photos of me on Facebook and gossiped about me on Internet forums such as mumsnet with no regard fir my privacy rights' grin]

TheBogQueen Hole in one!