Is this a safeguarding concern? WWYD?

[eliohelio]

Need some perspective please!

A girl I went to school with is now a primary school teacher (Y1). She has posted a picture to her Instagram story today of a display board on an easel she’s made for one of her lessons, but in the background of the picture is a wall display that has all the children’s class pictures all over it. The image is really clear, as in if I knew any of the children I would very easily be able to identify them. She also regularly posts which school she works in, so not difficult to identify.

Is this a safeguarding issue? If it were my children I certainly wouldn’t want them to be posted on someone else’s social media when I don’t know who that person has following them. Lots of parents choose not to share their children on social media nowadays but particularly not the school they go to.

Not sure if I’m overreacting but it doesn’t sit right with me - would you report this to the school?

School needs to be made aware and ensure that no danger has been brought to those in the pictures.

@Notashandyta

Would it not be kinder to message her directly rather than talk to her school?

This. She probably didn’t realise. If you refuses to take it down then it’s something you report.

She prob didnt spot that the children's pictures were clear in the background. Tell her and get her to take it down asap.

She must be pretty STUPID to not know this stuff cannot be online OP.. send her a message reminding her... 🌸

I bet she's buzzing excited and not realised its in the background but 'C'mon 🙄

@zoeydollie

Just message her "hey did you realise there are photos of the children visible in the background?"

That. She's very foolish not to have checked, but there's no need to be unpleasant. It just needs to come down.

If course, if she says there's no need to take it down, you might need to be more specific..

If you messaged her instead of posting on here the photo could have been taken down by now.

I agree that it’s inappropriate if it’s a personal account. I wouldn’t ever share pupil’s pictures on a personal page. I don’t give permission for my own kids to be on their school’s social media either.

But it’s interesting to think;

If you agree to your child’s photo being shared on the schools social media page it can be viewed and shared by anyone.

Eg. The school has an Instagram page. The school share a photo of children. Any person on Instagram can share that to their story. The teacher, a parent, a random person etc The same with Twitter/ Facebook - it can be shared across multiple platforms.

If the teacher’s social media page is private, the photo in question is likely to have a smaller audience and be less likely to be shared multiple times, than if it’d been shared on an official, public school page.

Thanks all for the advice. The image has been taken down now after a couple of messages to her.

Appreciate that reporting it could have been a knee jerk reaction hence why I asked here first, so genuinely do appreciate those who gave helpful advice and perspective.

( just to add that I absolutely had no ill intentions towards her personally and never suggested that I would be unpleasant to her, I was just concerned about the safety and privacy of the children)

It does need flagging up with school, not to dob your mate in, but so there xan be a record of safeguarding incident and a review as to whether any children who are at risk were on there.

It might not be common knowledge to parents of other children in the class as to other pupils that are at risk, have social workers or safeguarding concerns.

Plus there was a documentary on TV, can't remember if bbc or c4 Re women's refuges, and the number of times they had to move mothers and children urgently as they were made aware of fathers or ex partners locating children at school to identify their whereabouts was awful.

It sounds like she's just not thought about it. She should really know that it is unprofessional and a safeguarding issue. Op, like you said, you don't want to get her into trouble but could you just point it out to her as a concern?

I'm also a year 1 teacher and would never consider putting photos of children on social media. I have however, put photos of their funny drawings on but I edit out names if they can be seen and would never mention the school.

Parents have to consent to their child's photo being shared within a school, be it the school's website, Facebook, Instagram. Even a class photo. I had to be very careful with one child I taught who had been adopted. I had to always make sure she wasn't in the background of any photos I took of children for their books. Books that would be going home at the end of term.

it sounds to me like she hadn't noticed the background. I quite often see pic on FB where the person has got a tree growing out of their head or antennae or something equally stupid because whever took the pic wasn't really looking at the background but only the subject.

Tell her directly, she may have tried to crop and it failed. There will be strict social media rules, of course.

Just message her and ask her if she knows there are photos of children in the background. It’s then up to her what she does.

Even if she's now taken it down does she not have to report it to the school herself now? If I make a data protection breach I have to report it even if I've managed to sort it out.

Tell her you can see the names of the children in the background-job done.