When did no surnames become a thing?

[jewelcase]

There are bigger problems in the world, sure. But it was my younger DD’s school play the other night. The Y8s do a play every year, and this was hers.

In the programme, they listed the cast. But they only put first names. The school newsletter is the same. No surnames.

When did this start, and why is it a thing? I guess for some kind of safeguarding reason, but what’s the risk? It just seems to infantilise the kids, and you can’t tell one kid from another with the same name.

Is my kids’ school the only one? I suspect not.

AIBU to want surnames back?

How is being referenced by their first name restrict their experiences?

Or because their real name doesn't have the right headline grabbing appeal, for example Maurice Micklewhite aka Michael Caine or Archibald Leach aka Cary Grant.

Children in a family who has fled DV.
Children who are in foster care whose birth parents aren’t allowed to know where they are.
Children who have been the victims of a crime and protecting them from their offenders knowing their whereabouts.

A few examples of safeguarding risks with using children’s whole names. Particularly if the surname is not a common one, mine is very uncommon and would be easily spotted if someone was looking for it.

Unless the omission of last names somehow stops families from keeping programmes, I’m not clear on how it relates to my question.

John could be any John though, John White, that's their child, in black and white.

I’m really not sure what you mean by ‘infantilised’?

Some kids are at risk if their full name was to be searchable and linked to their school. Other posters have explained some of the reasons why that may be.

I find it a bit bizarre that you think seeing that John Smith played the third wise man is more important than keeping those kids safe.

GDPR.

Why do you care? All you need to know is what your kid did surely?

That scenario would never exist. But if it was a question of a hundred kids in a school play then of course prioritise the safety of the one.

But we do have activities curtailed or heavily regulated in the name of safeguarding where there is potentially a more nuanced discussion to be had (moving away from the issue of names in a school play programme). Others asked for examples…
Neither of my daughters can use the kitchen at the local community centre for their Guides group due to safeguarding concerns re cookers and knives.
Both of my daughters have had activities at school cancelled due to insufficient numbers of DBS-cleared volunteers, with safeguarding cited as the reason despite several parents volunteering (not DBS checked).

Things like that make me wonder about the proportionality of safeguarding. When I was a kid, we were much more free, despite no mobile phones to track us. Is the world more dangerous now than then, overall?

How schools handle things often depends on how many children in the school require safeguarding.

In the 20 years I worked in schools I've worked in some that still do full names and omit children who can't be named because they only have one or two in that situation and it's felt changing the whole way things are done would draw more attention to them. Some schools do just first names with a surname initial or year group.
In a few others, especially those that were the local designated schools for a refuge for example, it has been only first names for many many years.

In the latter situation it's much harder for a mistake being made (even checked and double checked a child can still be missed from the list) to cause significant issues, for example.

They already know which John their child is, presumably? And the programme is being saved for their own personal enjoyment?

As ways in which something might be detrimental to the general community, ‘not being able to read my last name somehow impacting my enjoyment of a programme I’ve saved from my child’s school play’ isn’t really…anything at all.

So essentially parents desire for their child’s name in a school newsletter or programme should take precedence.

As the Op says some people (children) will just have to be less safe.

Is the world more dangerous now than then, overall?

Or is it that children are safer now because of the safeguards put in place that means local groups, for example, now have to be a bit more than Billy's Dad and Sarah's mum hiring a hall and letting the kids run riot with random parents and people helping out?

OP I'm really pleased you don't understand, I hope it remains that way for you and your children.

It's for safeguarding so if one of parents have left an abusive relationship. Or children in foster care. If parent is a risk to their child. They don't want them finding out the school their at hanging around outside even threatening them. You have obviously never been in that situation to get why it's done.

Well I mean there is an unprecedented childhood mental health crisis so kids are coming to that kind of harm at levels never seen before. More kids are victims of violent crime now than a decade ago. Far more kids are harmed by obesity.

We’ve swapped terrible harm being done to a tiny number of kids by horrific adults for terrible harm being done to more kids by different means.

Then this becomes a known thing. Chikdrens names publsihed without surname are at risk. At best singles them out, at wost someone finds them. It makes it obvious who is the one child. You don't know all parents at your childs school have good intentions either. Criminals have children, you wouldn't know who they are or who they are connected to.

I agree that the world is more bubble wrapped now compared to what it used to be but I don't feel that is down to the introduction of safeguarding of the minority.

Your examples are odd because to me they are ALL valid areas that do need safeguarding. Would you really be happy if your child was abused on a school activity because they had let a non DBS checked parent/teacher join them just to make up the numbers? Or if a/your child stabbed another because they were allowed to play with knives unsupervised? Who would you blame? Because I guarantee it wouldn't be your darling children, you'd be blaming the facility for their lack of safeguarding.

The thing is, the kids in their class know their full name, so surely by the time they get to secondary there is a risk of kids they know naming them in social media posts (which may also reveal the school or at least make it easy to find). And in secondary surnames are used a lot as they are bigger schools so usually multiple kids with same first name. So I would think a printed programme or newsletter would be the least of their worries if they need to hide that much but haven't changed their name. Generally our names are public property - lots of people get to know them.

Really not a reason to stop safeguarding measures that are in place.

That might be a sensible point if you can point to a link between measures to protect kids in vulnerable situations and those harms to kids.

But I doubt you can.

You also seem to conflate several different aspects of safeguarding. General safeguarding to avoid children being around inappropriate adults, safeguarding to manage risks to kids physical safety, and safeguarding to manage the risks to specific children subject to specific risks. It’s absurd to conflate those three aspects.

It’s safeguarding. Most primary school classes will have one or two children who are looked after. Often they’ll have a parent who is not allowed to know their whereabouts, so schools tend to not publish any info that could make them identifiable if their name was searched online. Equally there are children who are not in the care system but have a family member who is not allowed to know where they live.
Obviously it would really stand out if all children were listed properly except for those children so it just makes sense to treat all children equally.

Do you not think the families of at risk kids aren’t aware of that, and constantly thinking about how to manage those risks?

But the existence of other harder to manage risks isn’t a reason to abandon the very sensible mitigation the OP is complaining about.

Our school uses full names in programmes, prize givings, weekly news letters etc so never heard of this

No of course I wouldn’t be happy. But that again comes down to personal experience being the enemy of good policy.

Take our particular kids out of the equation and look at things dispassionately.

What are the chances of a non-DBS checked volunteer being harmful to a child? Absolutely tiny. And yet all children miss out on the activity because we are unwilling to take that tiny risk. A risk which, by the way, is not ruled out even with DBS checks.

What are the chances of kids being so stupid and naughty that one ends up stabbed? Pretty small indeed. And yet the joy and learning of cooking as a group of friends is lost in the name of safeguarding.

Asking ‘Would you be happy to see your child stabbed’ isn’t the right question, because of course no parent ever would.

You can't be serious?

You don't think some perv might take a shine to one nipper and search for his family online to find out where he lives as a very most basic premise?

Do you have children?