about teachers' personal twitter pages

[Rylanmakesmyheartsmile]

First off let me say that I genuinely don't know if I'm being unreasonable here or not - I just know the whole situation doesn't quite sit right with me and I'd like to garner some other (hopefully rational) opinions.

Our primary school has recently (in the last year or so) set up a school twitter page. I am not on twitter myself, but can see the school page so keep it open on a tab on my phone so I can easily find it again. They post probably 4/5 days out of 7 and sometimes several times a day. It includes reminders about things (which are often not sent in any other way like groupcall messages or email hence the need to keep an eye on the twitter page), photos of activities in classes, retweets from other organisations and schools etc etc.

This is all ok - I have to say that I don't love twitter and I'm not personally sure of the need for it (we also have a school website with class blogs which are (for the most part) updated regularly - some daily), but I admit that I'm not the most tech-savvy and bar MN and FB - I don't do any other kind of social media, don't use Snapchat or any of these other things.

My question however is that the school twitter page contains a fair number of retweets from some teachers' personal twitter pages - these are definitely personal pages and having looked at a few of them, they definitely include plenty that's not to do with the school. These retweets (and it's probably important to say that having looked more closely - I would say for every post which is retweeted there is another one which isn't), are about what's going on in the school and include videos and photos of the kids. Things like a school trip to a museum, or a video of the class doing an exercise routine for sport relief, or pictures of the kids with artwork they had done for a specific project. (These are all examples which have come up this past weekend.)

Is this ok? I know we sign a form at the start of the school year saying we are happy for our kids' photos to be used on the website etc but I feel like teachers' personal twitter pages are something else.

I KNOW that barring any issues with children who aren't allowed to be photographed (and I'm not suggesting that these at risk children are included in these photos), there isn't any harm to it (I don't think) but it still just sits uncomfortably with me.

Is this normal? Am I just a dinosaur?

None of my DC are in the classes whose teachers do this, however my DTs have a 50% chance of being in one of the most prolific poster's classes next year.

I don't know - it just doesn't sit right with me, and seems so at odds with all the info which we are pushing on or kids (rightly so) about internet safety etc.

Sorry - that was FAR too long!

Twitter is a public internet site, so anything that goes on there is accessible to everyone, no?

Most teachers are likely to have a personal social media account with a pseudonym, and then a professional one with their real name.

How is it unsafe?

What info do we push on our children?

What do you think the difference between a teacher's account and an open 'school' account is? Why is one more unsafe than another?

Yes, I think so. However - the afaik the school website is also public and accessible by anyone, hence why I don't know if this is really any different and I am just being grumpy for no reason

If the school Twitter page is not locked then there is absolutely no difference between the school public Twitter page and a teacher's one. Both are viewable by anyone with internet access.

Info re: internet safety like being careful about posting photos which would reveal where you live or what school you go to for instance. Info about not sharing things publicly but keeping any social media pages locked down on private etc.

All very sensible recommendations I think, and just seemingly at odds with the school posting photos of the kids, in uniform, often times with names and references to whose class they are in, what they've been doing etc.

crumpet I do understand that (two of my siblings are teachers and many of my friends are too so I know plenty who have fb profiles with their middle name or a different surname etc.) These pages are definitely not just linked to school though - they include loads of personal things like socialising at the weekends or holidays etc.

Revoke agreement that their photos can be published, that will make sure your children's aren't on there.

your children's photos

Teachers are updating class blogs daily?!

Twitter is the new place for teaching -gimmicks- CPD.

I know they are all open to the public so there isn't really a difference, I don't know why it bothers me so much. It just seems off. Maybe I am being unreasonable though - totally prepared to accept that. Like I said, I am a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to social media and techy stuff. I do have a teenager though and I want to set good boundaries for him and guess I feel it's hard to lay out boundaries like protecting your image and identity online when the school (admittedly not his school anymore) freely shares photos and information online with anyone

Nothing should be posted on teacher’s personal Twitter profiles. Also, no images of school children should taken on personal phones etc. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

I'm a teacher, with a personal twitter account. Our school also has an open twitter account. I don't repost 'tweets' from my school (never occurred to me tbh!) BUT I can't see what difference it would make...it's completely open, anyone can look can't they? Not really sure why you think it's wrong...as long as the children in the posts have photo consent. It's the modern world...we just have to get used to being completely visible to everyone in it! (However uncomfortable that might make us feel I guess 😳).

Perhaps the issue is that you're not comfortable with the existence of a public internet page with identifiable information about your child on it? That's fair enough. I don't think the links to the teachers' 'private' twitter accounts are an issue - everything on twitter is public.

Yes!! makingworkwork!!! Some update more than once a day! The nursery teachers seem to post the most I would say, but there are a lot of others who post daily or almost daily. My older DD's teacher posts probably 2/3 days out of 5, DT's teacher on the other hand has posted probably 3 times all year . The other teacher in their year group however posts daily as do several other teachers

I see what you mean. Our primary school and the local paper seem to team up each year and take a new class photo for the new joiners and publish it in the newspaper. It has each kids name underneath 😮!
Question it with the school or other parents first to get their opinions. We all need to have more of these conversations.

Our school has a Facebook page. I share and 'like' posts. No child is featured unless the consent form is signed. It is no less secure having me, the teacher share the post than it is having a parent share it. We are instructed, as staff, never to respond to negative comments, which seems obvious in my opinion. My own, personal Facebook account is completely locked down. You can see my profile picture and name - less information than I wear around my neck as part if my school ID. Teachers are warned we can not have anything that could be considered unprofessional in our social media pages. Mine contains pictures of my kids or family days out, pictures of my cats, educational stuff (news paper articles and sometimes me opinion, think posts like 'this is why the arts are so important' attached to an article about how Drama had helped a kid to achieve something'. Very bland, with 90% of stuff shared for family who do not live close and like to see what we are up to. As far as I can see, the teachers at your kids school are behaving entirely appropriately.

Are they re-tweeting something the school has posted on their accounts, or are the school re-tweeting stuff from the teachers account which contains pics of pupils. First one I would be ok with, the second one not so.

I do think people are far too fussy in general about their child's teacher - gasp - admitting in public that they are, in fact, their teacher, or their child's name - horror - appearing next to their face. What do people think is going to happen?

In any case, you have the option to say you don't want your child's image put online. Use it.

Sorry for the typos. Wiggly baby on my knee making typing tricky

I think you just need to revoke your photo-permission, tbh. If it makes you feel uncomfortable, that’s the best thing to do.

Lol this makes me laugh

You're not even on Twitter and you can access the school page. That means it's public and ANYONE CAN ACCESS IT. it doesn't matter if the teachers retweet, the information is already public.

The issue to bring up is that they have a public page, or just rescind your permission.

It's the both FestiveRoad but mainly the 2nd one

Surely the retweets just link back to the school Twitter page? So it's no different than it being posted on the school account? That being said, school shouldnt post full names of children in pictures. All schools give you the option to agree to photos of your child on social media and if the way they conduct and run their Twitter account makes you uncomfortable then you're totally in your rights to ask that they don't put photos of your child there. I'm a teacher and have quite a few kids in my class who can have their photo taken in school, can have it on the website or displayed in the classroom etc but not on twitter. It isn't an issue at all and I have a list displayed in my room of who doesn't have photo permission to make it easy.