To send screenshot of Year 7 WhatsApp group chat encouraging knives in school.

[Sailingtelltales]

The question really is how far do secondary schools take business conducted outside of school seriously?
IABU to forward WhatsApp group chat content with Year 7s encouraging bad behaviour to the school headmistress, or just let them deal with it in their own time??

My son is 11.
Both he and his slightly older sister have had a relatively sheltered upbringing. Neither have had access to nor are interested in things like MTV type music videos, social media, bragging, showing off, pretending to be gangsters in the style of textspeak they use with friends on their phone or Xbox in-game chat, that sort of thing.

They are both appalled by other kids bad behaviour in school, and neither have ever broken the rules.
My son has become house Captain within a month of starting secondary school and has already complained that class discipline is so poor he can’t actually learn .

Not to make them sound too square, they’re otherwise normal kids, have friends, stable family life, gaming consoles, mobile phones (monitored by us with their knowledge) etc

However, having scrolled through a group WhatsApp on his phone, I’m astonished to find kids I’ve known since their infant school days, using the worst kind of language, the girls being cajoled into posting photos of their faces, girls being called whores, and that their fellow 11 year old boys in their school want to ‘ gangbang them and their Year 7 mums’ .

There’s also mention of a kid bringing his knife into school (which is being dealt with by school). But on the group chat, he’s being encouraged to do it yet again.

I know school can’t police anything outside the grounds, but should I screensave this chat and forward to the headmistress, where it’s mentioned he’ll be bringing a knife in again?

I appreciate most of this is down to my being a bit of a prude as far as the language and discussion goes on 11 year old’s WhatsApp group chats ....I had no idea ! .... and that boys this age are mostly big puffs of air.
...But we don’t live in an inner city urban gangland, we are east of England suburbia, so the issue with this kids peers encouraging him as ‘the class naughty boy’ to keep being naughty, is frustrating.

I’ve already deleted my son off this group chat but they keep adding him back onto it by changing Admin members daily, so I’m on a losing battle there.

I’ve spoken to both my kids about the topics raised in group chat and they understand why it’s wrong regarding the pressure to make girls post photos of themselves, and encouraging weapons in school.

@LilacPebbles and @Mintjulia as a former single parent for 9 years of my children’s lives, the comment was specifically aimed at the man’s profile, not single parents in general.

@lilacpebbles at the present time the priority is the weapon, not conversational childish bluster amongst 11 year olds which lets face it, is the parents responsibility, they should be monitoring their child’s whatsapp and delivering their own discipline on the topics their kids raise.

@Sargass0 You can stop now OP as you have posted the real reason for your thread with your latest update. (bet you couldn't wait could you to get that in)

What do you mean? The post is about a decision to inform school of a weapon being encouraged onto the site. If you’re finding conspiracies in the post that’s your agenda I’m afraid.

A friend of mine has recently lost her son to knife crime. His murderer has thankfully been put away for a long time but this is kids killing kids. If you have any evidence of anything to do with knives raise it with school and the police. Do not just rely on schools as they tend to hush a lot of stuff up.

@Onadifferentuniverse “our latest update is absolutely appalling.
I did sense a bit of a ‘I’m better than you’ tone in your opening post.

You’re absolutely disgraceful judging people for being single and unemployed.

Why don’t you be grateful for what you have op instead of judging people and putting them down for the cards they’ve been dealt?
You have no idea of their circumstances”

Former single parent of almost a decade. Minimum wage retail worker. £500 overdrawn in my bank. Does that give you reassurance of my background? Have absolutely a good idea of people’s circumstances from different backgrounds.
This post is about weapons in schools, not single parents as it’s been unhelpfully hijacked to. If you’re trying to encourage a poster to not report these sort of issues for fear of backlash from ‘all the single parents’ then you’re going the right way about it.

Lastly, if it’s any help, the school actually has its own lone parents group where issues like juvenile crime, poverty, etc are discussed, so yes, the fact is, as single parents, we are all shoved into the same camp whether we like it or not as education, crime and poverty are all linked.

OP, you can't ever mention anything negative about single parents or low socio-economic status, as you will be eviscerated by the chip-bearers and the virtue signallers.

If you hadnt mentioned that the dad appears to be a single parent, and had stuck to all the stuff about him being a grossly negative influence on his kids, you'd have had 324 posts asking about the mum and saying that perhaps the mum is the neutralising influence. The fact is, YOU saw the social media. You know what the scummy dad is like. Keep your son safe, and yes, have a serious Come-to-Jesus talk with him about why he's choosing to hang out with these losers.

What do you mean by asking PP if she's encouraging a poster not to report due to backlash from single parents? I'm a single parent and was the first to comment that you are duty-bound to report this and I'll not be the only single parent here who gave you the exact same advice.
The fact is you saw fit to mention several irrelevant points in your follow up- own it. On rereading your original post, a previous poster was right to note your painful attempts at superiority.
Floozie, you just made that up. Pure speculation because it didn't happen. The dad could be a scumbag, yes...funny how you correlate that to lone parents, since you defend OP seeing fit to mention it

yes I will judge a book by the cover as his own dad really doesn’t look like he’s teaching his son any ethics.

It's almost like having a dad with a drink problem who doesn't teach their son personal responsibility

@LilacPebbles

What do you mean by asking PP if she's encouraging a poster not to report due to backlash from single parents? I'm a single parent and was the first to comment that you are duty-bound to report this and I'll not be the only single parent here who gave you the exact same advice. The fact is you saw fit to mention several irrelevant points in your follow up- own it. On rereading your original post, a previous poster was right to note your painful attempts at superiority. Floozie, you just made that up. Pure speculation because it didn't happen. The dad could be a scumbag, yes...funny how you correlate that to lone parents, since you defend OP seeing fit to mention it

What did i make up? Is your chip getting a bit heavy there?

Funny I don't have a chip on my shoulder. You invented that as well as your imaginary scenario. I predicted I'd fit in your pretend 'shoulder chip' box instead of your pretend 'virtue signaller' box, because I said I'm a single parent. So boring.

Maybe it depends in the country where you are, but in my experience, schools take any talk let alone action of knife crime or sexual violence really seriously.

A child in a local school was expelled a few weeks into Y7 for taking a knife into school (first and only offence).

A friend of mine is a Y7 tutor and sorting out social media bullying has taken up most of her time this term, even more than usual as children spending more time at home with not much to do.

Definitely let the school know OP and I agree with take your children off Whatsapp if they can't resist being in these types of group chats.

Only on Mumsnet can you be called a t*at for asking for views on whether you should report potential knife crime amongst pupils [hmm

Ah well. Perhaps it will prevent other parents from going to school with these issues so that one of your kids will have that cold slice of metal slipped between their ribs all because you think it shouldn’t be discussed on MN. Well done.

😱

If you are in the UK its actually 16

@slipperywhensparticus

As parents, we can demand our underage children don’t use age restricted social media, but in reality, unless you’re monitoring their phone, you have no idea what they’re up to.
My young nephew for instance has a monitored account his mum is aware of, and one she isn’t aware of.
It’s frustrating for sure.

This is a massive child protection issue. It is your duty to report to the school and police straight away!

@Thereluctantstepmother it’s already been reported this morning.

[quote Sailingtelltales]@slipperywhensparticus

As parents, we can demand our underage children don’t use age restricted social media, but in reality, unless you’re monitoring their phone, you have no idea what they’re up to.
My young nephew for instance has a monitored account his mum is aware of, and one she isn’t aware of.
It’s frustrating for sure.[/quote]
My son uses my WhatsApp account it also backs up to my email regularly so I have a record

Speaking as a teacher, albeit in a Primary School, I'd say YES - ASAP! Screenshot & send the specific references to the knife & the sexual threats. Follow up too, to ensure the school take some sort of action.

Of course issues surrounding weapons and vile sexual and misogynistic content needs reporting to the school. It's something schools take very seriously.

You lost me with the "normal child, has friends, stable home life" followed by "single dad etc though plus how it's all the other children who encourage this boy. Nobody is hijacking your thread. You've just disliked the fact that several people have picked up your attitude. Your opinion of this child's father is irrelevant. He could be a nice middle class professional and reporting violence, weapons and misogyny to the school would still be the correct thing to do.

Change your child's whatsapp settings or take him off whatsapp if you're not confident he can navigate social media with all the other children who are no good. If he has his own group of friends and his own hobbies then there is no reason for him to be in the group chat.

@Sailingtelltales

Only on Mumsnet can you be called a t*at for asking for views on whether you should report potential knife crime amongst pupils [hmm

Ah well. Perhaps it will prevent other parents from going to school with these issues so that one of your kids will have that cold slice of metal slipped between their ribs all because you think it shouldn’t be discussed on MN. Well done.

There was a pretty clear 'yes' to your question should I inform the school about the content of this Whatsapp chat?

No-one has said that knife crime, Whatsapp groups etc should be discussed on MN.

You seem hostile to any suggestion that your children shouldn't be using social media if they can't resist joining these sorts of group chats, and very keen to criticise other peoples parenting including that of your nephew, but that is obviously your look out.

"but in reality, unless you’re monitoring their phone, you have no idea what they’re up to" YES! Monitoring their phones is exactly what you're meant to do when children start using social media and to continue until you're as sure as you can be that they're making good choices and even then check randomly.

@christinarossetti19
There was a pretty clear 'yes' to your question should I inform the school about the content of this Whatsapp chat
It was informed to school long before many people recommend Yes. The thread has just trailed on since then.

You seem hostile to any suggestion that your children shouldn't be using social media
Can you paste evidence of that? My children use WhatsApp and I’ve no truck with other parents allowing their children to as well. I think you’ve confused me with the poster who put up a screenshot of WhatsApp age limits.

@LilacPebbles You’re incredibly touchy and I’m not sure what’s eating you, but by condoning the namecalling it sidetracks the important opening question of this post. Which has been long answered by the way, this thread needs to go zombie really.