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?

Yes obviously DBS check does not always prevent a risk when a person hasn't yet committed or actually been caught of that crime but I would much prefer my/any children to miss out on an activity rather than to willingly send them away with an unknown paedophile in the disguise of a parent or TA just to stop a couple of children and parents getting the hump.

Stating "personal experience is the enemy of good policy" whenever someone gives you a valid example is stupid because you wouldnt even have a thread to post without YOUR OWN personal experience of YOUR childrens surnameless programme and YOUR children's lack of knife play and school activity. All of your points are in relation to your own childrens experiences (or lack of in this case).

Your goalposts of your argument keep changing. You don't have a voice for the majority of people because many don't actually care what small things they have to sacrifice to protect the life of another child.

Also, Your later examples actually have you in the minority. If you want to send your kids to school day camp with a possible sex offender then be my guest (dont sue the school though because in this instance this is all on you) But I would imagine no other sane parent would send their child on an activity with a volunteer they know hasn't been vetted by anyone at all.

“there are very good reasons safeguarding exists and as adults we all play a part in upholding this”

Well given that generally speaking our kids are more unhappy, more mentally ill and more obese than ever before perhaps we’re not actually keeping them particularly safe. Maybe we need to recalibrate our approach to keeping them safe, possibly by moving away from unthinkingly ‘doing safeguarding’ and being more sophisticated in thinking t what actually works. That might mean some difficult conversations and the slaughter of some sacred cows.

@ARichtGoodDram It would have been easier to sent the printer away for repair!

I’m glad DBS are being stricter on the need for enhanced checks. Long overdue.

I am genuinely surprised that people see the risk of harm from an adult to be greater than the risk of harm to the child from
missing out.

I can understand the emotions involved, of course. But in the cold light of day 99.9999% of adults would mean children no harm whatsoever. Any adult could be a possible sex offender. But almost none actually are.

There are over 68,000 registered sex offenders living in the UK alone. There are likely thousands more that havent been caught or prosecuted that are walking among us. But, to you, almost no adults are actually sex offenders? Really?

I'm not entertaining this anymore. You obviously don't have a brain. Or common sense. Let's hope you never make it into parliament because we will all end up tortured/raped, named and shamed, then burned at the stake 🙄

Well some kids, like mine have a legal surname but go by a “known as surname” in school. There are very important reasons for this and I will be changing her surname by deed poll to mine as soon as she turns 16. Maybe school has similar issues and decided that it was just easier to use first names.

Op, as stated above there are 68k registered sex offenders. In aome areas say wiltshire there are 1 sex offender for every 900 people. Stats available freely online. There is a good likelihood one sex offendor is part of your school community. Could be someone you talk to daily. You will likely not know, but a school would want to check that they are not getting a registered sex offendor to help out at rhe fete. Surely, that is common sense?
It is a known fact there are many, many more sex offendors and paedophilea than are registered. But many will have allegations against them. We can't know who they all are but at least we want to not hire the ones we do know about to work with childten.

She did. But there’s safeguarding reasons as to why her DD’s face and even new name can’t be out there. But people tho k having their little diddums on social media is more important than the safety of vulnerable children.

Did you read my two real life examples? Do you think those children’s safety is less important than a child “missing out” on <checks notes> having their surname in a programme? As a PP said anyone who matters to the child knows they were in the show. And frankly no one else gives a shit. So why do you see their surname being so important that it’s “missing out” at the expense of other at-risk children?

Youd be the first to complain I imagine if an angry estranged dad came to the school with a machete because of a safeguarding slip. And yes it does happen

"I am genuinely surprised that people see the risk of harm from an adult to be greater than the risk of harm to the child from missing out."

And op - if it were YOUR child who was at significant risk of harm from someone in your community or your family would you still say that your child's friends had more right to have their photo online or their name published or other such things than your child had to being safe and protected?

The other issue is of course other parents like you who have no sense. My child was in a class photo recently and was the only one who's parents didn't give consent for their photo to be circulated online on a public sm account which genuinely really shocked me.

Sex offenders may be a smallish subset of the population, but the harm they do is extreme and that is why safeguarding measures are robust. Especially since they will actively seek out places where children are likely to be. Think about it in terms of product recall. If a product was unsafe and a few children had died from using that product - would you still expect it to be on shelves lest other children missed out on the opportunity of playing with it? Would you buy it for your own kids knowing other kids had died because of it?

In the case I knew of, the risk was that the father would be able to track the child down and try to kidnap them again (he was court ordered to stay away from the child)

You need to educate yourself a great deal more about child sexual abuse If you genuinely think this is true.

I think we may have found the reason why any random parent who feels ‘sad’ that her kids name isn’t in a play programme is not the person who decides on safeguarding measures.

Yeah it's wild how privacy related issues evolve with time. I was reading an old obituary for a relative and it included his home address where his widow and kids lived. Obviously people might want to send condolences, but it also could leave the family vulnerable in the rare chance there was a predator looking to take advantage of someone.

Yeah it's wild how privacy related issues evolve with time. I was reading an old obituary for a relative and it included his home address where his widow and kids lived. Obviously people might want to send condolences, but it also could leave the family vulnerable in the rare chance there was a predator looking to take advantage of someone.

When I was very young a friend of my grandparents (they brought me up) died and their obituary and funeral notice was posted in the paper, including their address and also mentioned their son as 'Mr X Y, of X street' and both the deceased persons house and the sons house were robbed while the funeral was on. Being a Catholic mass and then burial a wee distance away they knew they'd have a chunk of time. I only really know of it as my Nana was adamant that my Grandads obituary shouldn't have details in.

are you actually ok? It’s not an either/or situation. Let the schools safeguard our kids if you don’t mind. You can raise yours however you like - put their names in skywriting if you’re so desperate for people to talk about them, targeting this minuscule tactic the schools employ to keep vulnerable kids safe makes you look like an absolute loon.

It's possible the school is aware of a parent in hiding from a malicious ex.

There could be other similar reasons, but this one's more common than we should be able to expect.

[edit: sorry, I missed a page of PPs]

why not post with your full name and area or employee on here?

Dancing club is optional. School is not.

if you have an at risk child, with a birth family who may be a danger, you don’t publish surnames.

i coach a sports team. We have two at risk children- they do not compete or participate in shows or competitions as their names cannot be published/risk being in social media photos.

if your school published names, great. It means there are no at risk children in your school. My dd went to primary with a child who was hidden from her birth family- fostered out of area, the works. They still had an absolute ban on any phones/recording devices in the school where that child may be present. No “programmes” at all.

generally you will not know if you have an at risk child in your dc’s school.

I work in safeguarding and honestly, most human minds cannot comprehend what some adults will do to children.

Maybe this is why some parents started to use such 'unique' spelling for their children's name?
Then they can proudly show that DeeerDreee appeared as Joan of Arc in the school play?

It's for similar reasons to why some childcare settings require a password when someone different collects the child, even if that person is a close family member. For most children these measures aren't that important, but I'm glad they're in place for the children that do need them.

Wow! That's terrible.

Haven’t read the full thread, so apologies if this has already been addressed, but - does anyone know if this is common in countries outside the UK? Just asking because I’m American and this is the first I’ve ever heard of this. Over here, you sign forms at school about whether you give permission for your child’s picture to be taken, or whether you give permission for your child’s picture to appear on the school’s media, but the idea of not listing a child’s full name in something like a theater program is not in the realm of my experience.

@YankSplaining, that does mean such children would have to be excluded from some activities. People are going to take pictures of the cheerleading team, prize winners, etc.

In some cases this would, regrettably, be necessary but, if a child's relatively average-looking and has a common first name, they could probably take part safely as long as no further information's given.

Well there’s a couple of options.

some schools may prefer to let a child participate and take appropriate safeguarding measures like not publishing surnames or restricting photos.

the other option is to not let the child participate at all. Which may be what your school does, or they maybe lucky enough to not have at risk children. So your theatre programme publishes names because there are no at risk children in the production.

the sport I coach used to try and control photos/videos and posting to social media years ago. Obviously that soon become impossible once everyone had a smart phone, and parents would ignore pleas not to post to social media, so now the rule is if you don’t or can’t consent to photos, you don’t compete.

OK imagine you had a reason to flee your home due to domestic violence, or you are in witness protection or your partner did something to your child.

You and your child have a really uncommon surname.

Your ex is about to be released from prison and you know he wants to take your child away from you.

Are you going to stop your child being in a play? Or are you going to ask the school to not put their surname in the programme?