To wish I could do my job AND have a private life... And not have pupils CONSTANTLY trying to find me online.

[TypicallyEnglishMustard]

I know, we exist in a digital age, and obviously my pupils are online a lot. I am too, with fake names for everything, and high security settings, because that feels sensible to me. I'm a secondary school teacher.

But I am fed up of pupils constantly playing "Find the Teacher Bingo" online, with me and my colleagues. Maybe it's just my school, but it seems that lately they are OBSESSED with finding as many of the staff as they can. I confiscated a checklist from one Year 7. We are constantly reporting pupils trying to "add" us on social media to the safeguarding officers. Today, a pupil gleefully came to me to tell me that she'd found a picture of me from when I was graduating university, and had printed it out on the school printer... That's really weird, right?!

AIBU to think that I have a right to a bit of privacy in my totally separate, ordinary life, without constant witch-hunting behaviour from pupils? Has anybody else had experience of this in school, and is there anything that can be done about it?

On the one hand, no yanbu to want a private life.

On the other, your students' behaviour is completely normal and predictable.
I am very surprised that some people here think it is weird for school kids to want to know all about their teachers.
Perhaps there will be some students with no interest in who their teachers are outside the classroom, but they must surely be in a minority.

Being a teacher is a bit like being a celeb, but for a smaller audience.

now FB is chasing up people they think aren't using their real names, that might have to stop.

Well if Facebastard think I'm using my real name, they can flip right off - gits.

Same as a couple of other posters, used to be very curious about where my teachers lived "so so lives here" o cool! I have no idea why we cared but we werent strange kids! Also pretty sure if fb was about 10 years ago we would been looking up teachers too, I suppose it's like a game.

I've always had occasional requests from students, and have always just rolled my eyes, deleted and blocked immediately. I will always remember though a year 13 group of whom I was extremely fond and we left at the same time. After the summer ball one of them added me on Facebook, and then they all started to come through ping ping ping. I'm still friends with a lot of them now, 6 years later and I love seeing what they're up to. I still get reference requests for things, have arranged work experience for them, attended gigs and performances for them and generally support their endeavours. When I had Ds some of them came to visit and I am still in touch with some of their parents.

Current students?! Run away run away and report to management.

YANBU. I sympathise, but like some others, I think the mystery of me has disappeared from my school now that I am over 40 part of the furniture a more experienced member of staff. I have been at the school longer than all of the kids and don't bother with keeping secrets - they know my first name, that I am married, that I have kids, where (ish) I live and so on.

I am on Facebook but obviously do not have FB "friends" who are students. I do have a few who are ex-students (but are now in their late 20s/30s)

Hang on in there, OP, they'll get over it.

Do remember huge numbers of us choose not to be on Facebook or to post family news etc. Thaat is always a choice.

But why should a teacher not be allowed to make a choice about partaking in a very normal part of many people's social life, just because students can't respect their privacy?

I'm in primary, so it's not kids that are the problem, but the parents. Every year at the start of the year there's a couple of parents saying 'Oh I looked to add you on Facebook, but couldn't find you." Well, good, why do you think I'd want you on there anyway?

Midnite, exactly. [shocked] at parents asking you that.

And perhaps people should keep their suspicions about posters' real life identities and situations to themselves.

Not just kids! OH a lecturer at a university & constantly gets friend requests from those that he teaches!

people should keep their suspicions about posters' real life identities and situations to themselves

Don't worry I wouldn't dream of outing anybody, I'm just trying to illustrate that if posters are worried about online privacy that they need to be careful what they post. For all I know the OP changes a lot of her personal details and would be impossible to identify.

We've had several parents contact staff via private message to question them on school issues!

I havnt changed my name and am friends with lots of teachers, have never been added by a student! My settings are tight and only my profile pic and cover photo can be seen

The issue here is not whether or not you have an online life, it's that students are harassing and stalking you.

Whilst it is not seemingly sinister and a totally natural impulse for them, they still need to be taught that this is the same as hanging round your house, taking photos of you when you are out and about, finding out where your gym is and going there, etc.

They need to be taught how to be a good online citizen themselves. This is PSHE/assembly issue and should be dealt with as such. Searching for teachers on line is predictable, but stalking them is totally unacceptable. This needs to be taught!

Saying you shouldn't have FB is like saying you shouldn't go swimming or go the pub if you don't want photos or it everywhere. Online stalking and real life stalking are the same. I back you! Complain to unions and SLT.

Good luck.

It sounds like what may have started out as normal curiosity has turned into some kind of monstrous situation, OP.

If safeguarding or the head won't do anything about it, can you all as a group agree on certain social media protocols?

For example:
Friends list is set to strictest level of privacy.
No tagging of friends in photos that are publicly visible (such as cover photos and profile photos).
Definitely no adding of students to one's friendlist.
Perhaps preemptive blocking of student accounts so they can't see you all even when logged in.
Taking yourselves off the search and off search engine search results.

Anything else you can do to totally lock down your profiles.

And anyone that cannot or refuses to abide by the privacy wishes of others, gets unfriended because they're undermining everyone else's efforts to have a private life.

Basically, you all need to work together and completely lock down your social media profiles, especially if your profiles have links to eachother. It's bad enough that your students are being so invasive, let alone having colleagues undermining other's efforts by not being as strict with their privacy settings.

Totally what DarkRoots says.

When dd was at primary school it was other parents who were fb stalking the staff!!

Sorry to hear that this is happening. I can't offer any advice but I can understand why the pupils are doing it, as weird as it is. When I was at school I was in awe of the idea that teachers are people with their own lives outside of school. We used to talk about what teachers were probably doing outside of school, what their houses looked like etc. I once bumped into a teacher in the supermarket and I was dumbfounded like "whoa, they actually have a life outside of school".

Such a bizarre thing for children of that age, as silly as it sounds. But that's probably why they are doing it!