Emailed SENCO about my child's dyslexia and he had his email open in front of class AIBU to think this is a breach of GDPR

[Metabigot]

My daughter is 7 and I was told she had dyslexic tendencies by her teacher, so I emailed the SENCO who is also my sons teacher (year 5).

Was surprised he knew all about it as the teacher had his emails on the smartboard and although he didn't go into the actual email there was enough information in the title to identify my child and her potential condition.

This was in full view off all the year 5s and I'm concerned that this is personal information that has been inappropriately shared, could this be a GDPR breach. I don't want to take any action against the school just bring it to their attention as the SENCO should not have his emails publicly visible in front of all the kids surely?

@Whinge

They saw the email title which was (Childs first name/Child's surname poss dyslexia)

I'm not excusing the teacher, but that's quite a lot of information in the email title. Going forward could you use initials, or a more generic title?

yeah lesson learned for me but I honestly didn't think he'd have it up publicly in class.

I would never consider the need to be private in an email subject, as I assume the inbox itself is private. In fact in my line or work it’s considered really important to be direct and clear in the email title.

I can’t believe how many people are suggesting this is the ops fault for not being more discrete!

Definitely a bad mistake and I would be interested in hearing their apology and how they will stop it happening again

@flumposie

I understand your concern and anger, but there have been times when I have not realised the smart board was on but thankfully pupils have not seen anything personal. It would not have been deliberate.

Of course it wasn't deliberate, but it's a horrifying mistake to make, and there need to be systems in place to prevent it happening again. I was a teacher in a management position, and I had to have during words with one of my team who made the same error in a team meeting, where a confidential issue was clearly visible on his email list on the smartboard.

I would absolutely contact the school to request that this is addressed with staff.

@0None0

Yes a GDPR breach, committed by you, op, if there was enough information in the title to identify your daughter

Honestly, the amount of people who have no idea what GDPR legislation is! It’s about how institutions and companies handle personal data.

There is absolutely no legislation around that prevents a parent from mentioning their own child in an email.

It shouldn't have happened and it is a mistake on the part of the teacher. Absolutely contact the school and a reminder should go out to teachers to freeze their board before going into emails.

Hopefully that will be it sorted. I can see why it happened as it's easy to do when you're busy, but it shouldn't have.

It's fairly standard in education not to put private info the subject space. A name maybe or just initials.

However, I wouldnt expect parents to necessarily know this.

I think it's unfortunate that the heading included that info and I'd probably say to the teacher that the information was seen by the class.

However, I suspect that the teacher didn't expect for their to be sensitive info in the headings either so as long as they didn't open it, it would have been fine iyswim.

Tbh if I had info on an email I needed to share with the class, I wouldn't bother moving the file somewhere else unless I had WiFi issues. I'd just open it from where it was too.

In my school this would be very serious .. one colleague mistakenly projected his emails and was in the Heads office when it was reported the next day with a verbal warming. There was then a whole school email reminding us that we must never project emails and to have our settings on our emails to ensure that if an email comes through when teaching the notification does not pop up on interactive board.

I would report to school.

It's unacceptable because he shouldn't be reading his emails in class tbf.

Erm I read my emails during lessons most lessons! Why shouldn’t I?

He was accessing an email relevant to the lesson. But should have frozen the board first.

When DD was in y5, her teacher’s email flashed up a list of ‘disadvantaged children’ in her class for all to see. It definitely happened as my daughter came home and listed them. She asked me why one was disadvantaged when she lived in a huge house (it was to do with her family circumstances but dd would never have known this and the child didn’t either!). Awful error and the school needs to be very tight on this.

DS said often other teacher's emails flashed up on the white board for - all to read - completely normal occurrence, he said shrugging!

@User5827372728

It's unacceptable because he shouldn't be reading his emails in class tbf.

Erm I read my emails during lessons most lessons! Why shouldn’t I?

Yes I thought the same! A Y5 class can cope with a teacher reading an email - obviously not projected onto a board. For the thankless job of SENCO, probably around 10 extra hours of work a week, the teacher will be getting about 3 beans so I think it's reasonable to read the odd email in class time. When I was SENCO my take home pay actually went down, because of deductions. Not a job role worth doing IMO. Anyway OP, off track I know - you're right it shouldn't have been on the board and a quiet word is fine.

@Geamhradh

So your son said "Mr X had his emails on the whiteboard and I saw you have emailed him about my sister" It's unacceptable because he shouldn't be reading his emails in class tbf. How long was his email account projected for? I'd definitely let him know that the class saw his email account as presumably other confidential emails were briefly visualised as well, even if just the subject and sender.

How do staff get urgent messages to the teacher without disrupting every lesson, then? Things like 'Can Jessica come to Reception at 11am as her Mum will be collecting her for an appointment, please?' or more frequently 'Can you take your register, please?'

At my last place, there was a phone in every classroom and that drove the staff crazy. They absolutely detested people coming to their classroom to speak to them (and recently, staff have also hated that because some feel it puts them at risk from Covid transmission by crossing bubbles).

Even the emergency procedures in the case of a sudden threat to the building/staff/kids or in the area (so intruders, fires, accidents, unrest, terrorist incident, etc) are notified by email because it's silent, compared to expecting a receptionist to stand up and walk around with an airhorn whilst there's a nutter with a Samurai Sword the other side of her desk.

Of course, if you'd rather your DC get dismissed into the playground whilst everybody else is hiding under desks or behind locked doors because your teacher should never have emails open in class, that is your preference - but there's probably 29 other parents who would prefer that Mr Smith knows what's going on.

The forgetting to freeze the board is annoying, but it would not have been intentional.

Of course teachers have to communicate by email during lessons, and of course notifications appear on the screen

To be fair, in every primary I've worked in messages have just been passed by either the receptionist or a child with a note. Primaries are not very high tech! We had a janitor once who tried to silently communicate with military signals, though I never knew what he was trying to tell me 😂

@0None0

Of course teachers have to communicate by email during lessons, and of course notifications appear on the screen

You do know you can set up most email programmes can be set up to block the notifications appearing on the screen?

I am a teacher and as a school staff we have had GDPR training a few times. It is a breach because personal information was shared. The teacher should not have been sharing his screen to the whiteboard whilst accessing emails- very basic stuff. Saying that, I can see how it might happen by accident. Probably worth reporting to the head so all the staff can be reminded of their responsibilities to keep private data secure.

On a side note op. Look at word hornet or word wasp book. It's a great wee exercise book for dyslexic children that you work through. You can do a test on their website to find out what book you need. It worked wonders for my severely dyslexic son. And it's cheap as you buy the book and work through it.

I read this, full of fear, in case it was me.

The IWB mirrors our personal PC. There have been several occasions where I thought the board was frozen and opened my emails - the kids shouted out straight away to tell me.

It shouldn't have happened op, and it was certainly an unfortunate mistake but please remember that teachers are human.

Think about what you want to happen - presumably, an acknowledgement and for it not to happen again? A quiet word with the teacher should be enough to make that happen IMO.

I’m a teacher and would let the school know. It’s an easy mistake but once told then that teacher would never let that happen again. Sometimes they need to be told, to really get the message across. Not saying the teacher is bad, but they will learn from the mistake

It is a full breach, put a formal complain. That teacher needs training and your complaint will help the school to be more careful.
Honestly, the least thing they can do is to send you an apology and a list of actions they are taking to avoid confidential information being disseminated to the pupils.

I think you made the mistake here, you shouldn’t be putting identifying information in an email subject. Most people will wait until they are in a private setting to open a confidential email but will open their inbox when others are around or, in this case, connected to the whiteboard. It’s not uncommon for people’s email settings to bring up notifications with the subject title in either - mine does this even when connected to the whiteboard and it’s not a setting I can change.

If he’d opened the email i would say you were reasonable to complain but it doesn’t sound like that happened. The lesson for you is don’t put confidential information in the subject heading as this area is not private in the same way the email content would be. Don’t complain about the teacher for your mistake.

@GrandmasCat

It is a full breach, put a formal complain. That teacher needs training and your complaint will help the school to be more careful. Honestly, the least thing they can do is to send you an apology and a list of actions they are taking to avoid confidential information being disseminated to the pupils.

Yes my son told me yesterday that some f the kids were talking about it. I hope he wasn't too embarrassed. But it was shown when they were all looking at the board as part of the lesson, not in a quiet period.

I have informed the head teacher who is looking in to it.

YABU it’s a really easy mistake to make and you chose to put the full name in the subject title. It wasn’t done maliciously.

If your child has dyslexia the entire class will know anyway so it’s not like it was something that had to be kept secret.

This is why I extend my screen rather than duplicating it - so I would actively have to drag my emails across to the second screen for this to happen. Definitely not ideal, and a reminder to avoid/how to avoid is called for.