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.

I really wish I didn't have to look at the website and twitter page daily, but if I don't then I risk missing important information or just updates on what the DC have been doing that I am then expected to know all about.

It's mainly the school retweeting stuff which the teachers have posted on their personal pages - not the their way around, so I see it when I go to the school page and then it links to the teacher's personal page. The teachers posts probably tag the school so therefore link to the school page, but I don't know that for sure - I feel like every post has a ton of tags and I don't read them all.

I don't know if you are in England, but I am always puzzled by the hysteria around social media in this country.

Some posters have been outraged, horrified, shocked on your behalf because a teacher had posted ANONYMOUS funny quotes from children. In other countries, they make books out of quotes like that, in England it's a abuse, bullying and a safeguarding issue apparently.

I am amazed that we still allow uniforms, because they are such a certain way to identify a child: you know instantly which school they attend, how can some posters not get hysterical about it, I don't know.

Re: your twitter, I can't see the issue. Of course ,you are free to remove your permission and make sure the photos of your children are never published on twitter or the school website and local press. Just contact the office.

It depends. Are the teacher's 'personal' pages purely used for work purposes e.g. class pictures or do they also use it for their own purpose e.g. tweeting friends/family.
If the first then it's no different to the school page and if a large school more practical if it's the latter then it's inappropriate imo as they should be kept separate

It's the latter Wombat

Teacher here. Images and details of pupils shouldn't be tweeted from teachers' personal accounts IMO - it's not good practice. Either everything school-related is tweeted from the official @VillagePrimarySchool account or teachers / classes should have individual school accounts to which the school has access. It's very easy to switch between Twitter accounts on their mobile app, so a teacher can have both their personal account and their @VillagePrimaryYear6 account.

Incidentally, presumably in order to take and tweet these pictures staff are taking pictures of the children on their personal mobile phones, which would be in direct contravention of the policies of every school I've worked in.

Incidentally, presumably in order to take and tweet these pictures staff are taking pictures of the children on their personal mobile phones, which would be in direct contravention of the policies of every school I've worked in

Or they have a school iPad?

I have no idea what the photos are being taken on - I know there are school iPads which are taken out and about on trips etc but I have no idea if each class teacher has one or if they are shared

Our school tweets at lot, it's secondary school and many departments have their own twitter feed.

They are careful about what they say - they'll post a picture of kids planting trees or doing a science experiment with "some of our S1 kids learning about energy" or whatever but not "Here's Sophie Jones and Amelia Smith in 1D learning about science at 2.10pm in room 4". They also retweet from teachers and other sources.

It's really not a big deal. I also don't really care if anyone (shock horror) sees a picture of what an unidentified child has been doing in science.

If you sign a release form for your child's image to be used on social media then you are agreeing to it being released into the pu lic domain.The teachers account isn't more public than the sschools one? I don't really understand where you are coming from with this one!

Goodness that it long and boring

Or they have a school iPad?

Possibly, in which case teachers are signing in to personal accounts on a school device.

Is*

YippieKayakOtherBuckets

Which, if it isn't against that school's policy, they are allowed to do. I can check my personal email or social media at school - I just can't spend inordinate amounts of time on it or use it inappropriately.

My DDs didn't have photo permission (adopted) and I would be concerned enough to at least enquire about this.

I knew that the school twitter account took care to not post pictures of children without the relevant permissions. However I would want to be assured that the same was true for any personal-teacher tweets.

Unless the teacher accounts are MsXSchoolName then I am not sure I would be very keen.

My son’s special needs secondary school uses Twitter, however they have theirs set so that nobody can retweet. You can only like the tweets. Of course it doesn’t stop someone saving the photo and then doing their own tweet but it’s not quite so easy.

My issue (apart from the public nature of the twitter account) would be that at our school there are a number of teachers with politically opposite views to mine.

I don't really want pics of my kids alongside views which I find irritating (not to mention the fluffy bunny/kitten, "you ok hun" brigade). School stuff should be on school social media accounts, with protected access. I thought there were rules on that anyhow?

I'm not suggesting at all that the teachers are contravening any kind of employment rules set by the school or council btw - the SLT are obviously totally happy that they are posting on their personal pages because they retweet them regularly.

I think I am see that the general consensus is that IABU and probably an old fuddy duddy

Appreciate all the input.

(Apologies to the pp above who was so bored by the post that they needed to let us all know)

I don't think you're being a fuddy duddy. You have a right to challenge the ways in which your child's information is being used.

But what do you think the risks are here?

After setting up social media accounts for the primary school I teach in, we made it explicitly clear to staff that on Facebook we were not to "like" or "share" any of the posts as any parents would then be able to see and access our personal accounts and open us up to criticism or communication. Our head teacher is very strict on the privacy settings we have (eg twitter and Instagram accounts completely private and all photo and sharing settings on Facebook must be private). I don't think you are being unreasonable. I think it is important for there to be a line between school and Home, and for the teachers to be taken seriously as professionals. I'm sure the head teacher of the school feels the same way and it wouldn't be unreasonable to raise the issue with them.

But anyone can ‘retweet’ tweets; I’d rather teachers doing it than complete strangers! I run a community Facebook/Twitter page and regularly retweet things from local schools that I think people would like to know about, it’s just celebrating the good work that’s going on. It’s never crossed my mind that it is inappropriate; it’s a public forum after all.

NB I believe my local secondary school was the very first in the country to have a Twitter account (or they claim to be)- it’s a long established ‘tool’ that they use to communicate. Teachers have official school Twitter accounts too.

Newtothismumthing

But that's slightly different to the parent feeling 'uncomfortable', isn't it? The only person who would be at risk in this case is the teacher, in case any of their opinions or content were seriously questionable.

It may be harmless but it is bad practice. I'm surprised the majority on this thread are so cool about it.

At the very least, you gave the school permission to use photographs. You did not give the teachers in their capacity as private individuals permission, which is why most schools insist on using school devices for school photos for school publications.

If the teachers only ever posted anonymised pictures e.g. of a lovely drawing with the name cropped off, or feet in wellies in a puddle, then it would be better, but I'm really surprised they're posting anything identifiable.

You could ask for a copy of the social media and photography policies "because I am a bit of a dinosaur and want to get my head round it" and go from there.