To be angry at photos at Nativity?

[MrsAnamCara]

Just seen DC infant nativity. We were sent out letters, went to the office yo get tickets, had texts to remind people-all fine and well. No mention of needing permission to take photos/videos. Nothing mentioned before the start of the actual nativity performance either. The performance starts and several people whip their phones out and begin taking photos and videos but not of individual children, of all of the children on stage. It goes on throughout the performance and I can see in their view finder they are filming/recording video of 5+ children... A parent the right if the school Hall is stood filming the entire performance.

No one said they weren't allowed to but...neither was the guardian or parent of every single child asked either.

In my D's nursery, they asked for written permission, and if only one parent didn't give permission then no one was allowed to take photos or videos. Even if we were allowed, then it was photos and videos of your child only (zoom in) and if there were other children then you couldn't post it on social media and send to anyone else.

It really ruined the performance for me, as I don't know these people who are taking videos/photos of my child, I don't know where they will post them or send them to, I don't know who will see that photo or video. I did not give anyone permission to take his photo or record him?

I'm I being unreasonable to think the school should have asked for legal written permission for all children's parents or guardian's? And if some parents don't agree or give permission then that's too bad.

And if you don't want to compromise your children's safety that badly that you think a photocall that they're not in is going to put them in danger then surely just appearing in the play at all is going to be more dangerous?

elton it’s a school nativity, not a west End run. The only parents in the room are largely those we see twice a day anyway.

Because it comes across like just because your children can't do something you want to ruin it for everybody else

Not having a video isn't going to ruin the experience

The key point being missed by a lot on here is the school in question clearly weren’t aware of any child protection issues. If they were, they’d have taken steps to ban photography, make a school dvd or whatever was necessary.

Most people take these photos for their own personal use and no harm will come to any child from them doing so. Nobody can read minds, not the school and not other parents so it is up to those with potential problems to notify the school.

Genuine protection issues aside, the few precious parents don’t get to dictate what the majority want to do and have done for years. Unbelievable I know but most parents do actually want photos of their children taking part in activities!

So let’s get a grip here and differentiate between genuine protection issues, which should be taken seriously and all parents should be made to abide by whatever the school deems necessary to protect those children and the neurotic types who think taking a photo of their child is stealing their soul and life will never be the same again because, shock horror, their child is in an image on another parents phone/camera!

Two very different scenarios, be careful not to merge them!

Two very different scenarios, be careful not to merge them!

No one on this thread is merging them

Plenty of posters are dismissing genuine safety concerns as snowflake behaviour though

There’s always a twat. This thread’s littered with them. Unfortunately there are a lot of them around.

Some really good examples of why safe guarding needs to happen, that many seem to take on board. And a few who have proved that they will never be capable of taking anything on board.

I've lost focus on the issue in hand and have got distracted trying to guess who @welliesontheschoolrun 's DH might be...

the neurotic types who think taking a photo of their child is stealing their soul and life will never be the same again because, shock horror, their child is in an image on another parents phone/camera!

I mean, maybe I missed it... but has anyone said anything remotely like that?

Two very different scenarios, be careful not to merge them!

The thing is, those children who need to be kept safe will be safest if safe behaviour is 'the norm' , so if e.g. school-taken DVDs / photos are 100% 'the way things are done round here'.

That means that in the years when there is a full-on child safety concern (and IME they are much commoner than you might think), you don't have to make a special 'thing' with 'special rules', absolutely inviting everyone to speculate who the 'new child is who is causing the problem' [because by the nature of the type of issue that gives rise to photography issues, some of the children at risk will be arriving not at the normal point of entry, having been rehoused or had to flee their original home].

Rules that keep everyone safe every year will be best adhered to if they are absolutely routine, rather than varying from year to year.

Olenna, from experience with this - there will be a designated member of staff who very discreetly spirits away children who cannot be photographed, and will do so every time photographs are taken.

YABU. The worlds gone mad.

I think unless there is an issue that the school is aware of why shouldn’t parents get to film. What if one parent couldn’t make it,what if I wanted to show grandparents or have memories of my child? I think people should be maybe asked not to put on social media

There’s always a twat. This thread’s littered with them.

Probably worth posting this again.....

surely just appearing in the play at all is going to be more dangerous?

The thing is, the 100 or so people in the audience are unlikely to include an abused child's vengeful criminal parent, recently released from prison. However, once a photo or video has been placed on social media, out of the many thousands of people who might see it, one could easily be that parent, who might be proactively seeking that exact image...and the accompanying text would identify the school, and then the address follws easily.

As people have said before, its' NOT a photo problem. The single hard copy photograph in the family album that my parents have of me before a nativity play pus no-one at risk. It is image distribution via social media that is the problem.

At our school we are allowed to take photos and videos but we are asked not to put them on social media and to only show to close friends and family. That is fine by me.

Iwanttobe.

I think that depends. Every school will, at some point, have an at risk child on their register. The vast majority of schools, IME, will have at least one all the time. Some schools will have several most of the time.

The balance that has to be struck - because 'asking' not to put them on social media is not a particularly strong risk control - is between the protection offered by 'that's the way we do things round here' and how regularly real protection is needed. In many schools, protection is needed for at least one child all the time, so you might as well have a blanket policy.

However, that school policy should be 'school taken video and photos, no other photos', not 'no images at all of any kind taken by anyone'. If the only visual material available has been prepared by those who KNOW who is at risk, even people who put the result on social media despite being 'asked' not to won't be able to endanger the at risk pupils.

In my school the head always says parents can take photos, but the must not be posted on social media. It's not practical to send out letters to parents of 350+ children (that's how many took part in our KS2 Christmas assembly) to ask permission for each event and expect them all back. We already know which children cannot be used in photos by the school but obviously cannot pass that on to parents.

I opened this thread after a really shitty day (coz it is just before Xmas and it always kicks off) working with vulnerable children who need safeguarding. It has been pointed out before there are children who are at a real and significant risk of harm if their photos and details are shared on social media. This would have been my point although I would have probably put it less eloquently. It is not something everyone would realise without prompting, most of society do not have to or want to acknowledge that this is the case for lots of children in the UK.

I am just astounded by the lack of empathy by some posters for these children and their caregivers. This is a very real concern and everyone has a basic duty to safeguard the most vulnerable in our society. If it was your child, a family member or friends child..? Personal freedom and rights only work and continue to exist within an acceptance that we each have responsibility within society. I struggle to understand why anyone considers the safety and ongoing wellbeing of a child is less important than viewing a kids performance through a phone and posting it on social media for an uninterested audience.

Iirc dh missed all our children's nativities because he had to work. Grandparents certainly missed all the nativities because they live abroad. As did aunts, uncles, cousins etc. And there isn't one of them who wouldn't have been horrified by the thought of putting another child at risk or forcing another child to be excluded from a big class event just so they could have a nice picture. Comes with the territory of being a decent person.

Or to put it another way- what kind of a person would you have to be to say to yourself "I don't care if my grandson's 5yo friend was the only child in the school who wasn't allowed to be in the nativity play because it's more important that I, a grown woman, should be able to see a picture of it"?

The idea that you will be hidden or that people are able to find a child somewhere online through sheer coincidence is absurd.

Our major productions are livestreamed.

You need to get a grip if you really let this ruin the performance.

corythatwas well said.

cory

Indeed

Newhouse, the face recognition technology won't work on a child that young.

It will and has done for years, I used to use Picasa and it would pick out my young DCs and then match them with teenager photos. I haven't used it for at least five years.

It's so sad that we now cannot keep memories of our children from the most fleeting precious time in their lives, their childhood.

I'm confused though. It's not OK to take photos of my DC and look at them or share them with granny. But its OK for my school and extra curricular clubs to take professional photos of my DC and put them online and in brochures? At my station there is a massive ad for my school with my friends daughter on it. Surely that is worse than me uploading the school play onto my highly private FB with my 8 friends?

Its all gone a bit mad. That's why I keep myself to myself and let y'all get on with this kind of bollocks.