School not taking note of creepy behaviour

[Savethegirls]

Posting here for traffic and name changed for this question.

At my child’s secondary school, one of boys (15yrs)leaked his friend’s ipad contents. Screenshots of ipad had folders for several girls as young as 12. Its had pictures and text about how his interaction with these girls.

School suspended the boy who found it and circulated the screenshots, saying privacy violations. And all kids had to delete every evidence gathered. Parent of the creepy boy keep telling everyone its his habit to write notes and some of it was just “fantasy “.

Now obviously backlash no one is talking to the boy but the deputy Headmaster is now singled out girls and asking them to not believe these stories and they need to talk to him.

the creepy boy is in Drama tech crew and probably has a stash of pics from last few yrs.

the girls have seen the evidence and not ready to trust the school.

YABU - overthinking this
YANBU- call the Headmaster over this

parents and kids are feeling there might be repercussions at school if they complain. Any advice on how to handle this?

The boy from the 90s was doing nothing different from what the girls were doing - we often ranked boys on how fanciable they were. It was fun to do with your friends - we got to know who liked who etc…

If you didn’t do this, I’ll assume you were not in the ‘cool’ group.

This type of ranking was also how Facebook got off the ground.

It’s the usual blatant MN double standard; when the girls/women do something, it’s fine/a bit of fun etc. When boys/men do it, they’re disgusting perverts.

I had a list for sure. The hottest boys I fancied. If I’d kissed them, wanked them off or been fingered by them. Or if I wanted to do any of those things. And I obsessively wrote about the boys I fancied. It’s just teens doing teen shit. Get over it

Agree it’s a police matter

TMI 😂

This makes me sad.

The op has confirmed that tbr pictures were not intimate and mostly taken from school wrbsite and social media.

Absolute rubbish! GDPR does not apply to an individual collecting pictures etc purely for their own enjoyment, otherwise everyone who had any photo album would be a data controller!

All I can think is poor boy. I really don’t think he has done anything wrong. These were his personal notes! The one who leaked it should be suspended or something

He was. It’s right in the OP.

He has a school camera and the pictures he takes are for the school's media files, which he has access to. The pictures he used in his fantasy files were not all from social media/personals, they were ones that he only had access to because he has particular access to school media. So yes, it does apply.

Thank you for giving me hope. How much of this can been done anonymously?

my child wants me to speak to someone outside the school. She and her friends have said the school is misogynistic and nothing will come off speaking to them.
The girls are planning a petition to the school that the boy should not be allowed to click pictures at school events.

Safety in numbers it seems to address this issue.

I get it, the school are whitewashing his objectification of females.

Yes, please formally complain if he has faced no effective discipline and because the subjects have been gaslit.

I didn’t read everything but did you give permission for your child to have their photo taken at any point? If so, can’t you simply rescind that and then no one can take pictures of them in school?

Yep, this is a serious safeguarding issue, and I’m astonished the school has not already taken action. Call them.

Where did you get thorough investigation, welfare officers and SLT (rather than just the deputy) from? The same place you got your bullying?

Imagine if your daughter’s bullying and your enabling of her and her friends’ behaviour results in this boy hurting himself or worse. Speak to the school if you’re worried. But creating a petition against the boy? Disgraceful.

I work in a school and am very involved in safeguarding. I agree that photographs on the school platforms need to be carefully checked as some children, will need careful safeguarding for multiple reasons and their images being available on the website can be very dangerous indeed.

There will also be an explicit clause, for parents who have consented to the publication of school photos, which states how the photos can be used, and that will be perhaps advertising of the school, and on their website to document activities.

I understand that what the boy has done will be seen as creepy by the children involved.
However, at 15, I don't think that children always understand about what is appropriate. There was a very serious incident at my daughter's school, whereby an image of a girl was altered from a photo (not from the school website), was extremely inappropriate and was also shared between the other kids. The police were called. The boys involved were suspended but now back in class, which I think is dreadful.
I am also aware that my own daughter has had to block one 16 year old boy who was trying to obtain pictures of her to pass around to humiliate her and shared an image of her on a group call where she was pulling a face. That wasn't sexually motivated, but she was very upset. Parents need to be aware of this.
It doesn't sound like this is what this boy is doing, it sounds like he has some crushes and is figuring out his feelings. It's not appropriate use of media and needs to be taken seriously by school, but it does not sound like it's anything as serious as the incident at my daughter's school. Those boys aren't being bullied or shunned by their peers and I do think the girl must feel pretty awful being around them, in my opinion the police should have taken it further and the school should have excluded them. It was very, very bad but it has apparently been 'dealt with' and I trust that the school will have followed procedures to safeguard the children despite parents not always being made aware of what exactly this may have entailed.

Perhaps you should request a meeting with the school to find out what has been done, it may be that there have been sanctions imposed or involvement of outside agencies, which have not been made public.

The boy must be mortified. We can't know what his intention with the pictures was, but he must be feeling quite devastated to know everyone thinks he's a creep and his parents must be upset. It doesn't however, take away from the fact that girls feel uncomfortable. He needs learning around this (pretty sure the shock of being exposed like this may be sufficient to prevent it happening again) and this topic should be covered extensively in PSHE lessons. His parents need to monitor what he's doing and, at the very least, the school needs to take away his camera!

The Education dept may be a place to start or speak to NSPCC for advice and an independant opinion on the matter. I Would suggest you deal with the Education Dept in any event as they oversee the workings of schools and adherence to policies. Unfortunately if you don't give contact details you may hit a brick wall. However, if you speak to someone in Education safeguarding, they may well take it forward as they may be able to share the subject of the complaint with the school but not who made it as again, to do so would be a breach of GDPR. I would say a meeting with the girls and Education safeguarding would be astarting point. Cut the school out of it and let the Education Dept deal with it. Tell Education you are considering reporting the breach to the police and Information Commissioner. If they don't take notice put in a formal complaint. Howeverif they have any sense, they will deal with it.
If there is any bullying of children by the school in future report that to the Education Dept as well. Put everything in writting. Schools are not allowedto bully children to protect their own failings. If it was my child I would be at the school telling them that there is to be no further discussion on this matter without an adult present but you may also want to make that request to the Education Dept and ensure anonymity for your child and others.

It’s probably going to look a bit weird, but I teenager has got hold of standard photos and added text about each person. I take it that nothing derogatory, offensive, overtly personal details have been added?
granted it’s a bit weird, but teenagers can do that and I guess nowadays with the digital platforms they can quickly create and store many.

Another child has seen them and instead of carefully notifying staff they have chosen to share these images thus causing more distress, GDPR etc the school had to act. Some will say the child highlighted it, others may have wished a more discreet answer.

the boy who originally stored photos would be better having no access to any school media moving forward.

This seems like unusual behaviour and this child could have special educational needs / social communication difficulties that need supporting. I wonder if there is an element of bullying here.
The child may be seen as different, quirky - being described as ‘creepy’. Does a friend really hack into someone’s devices and leak their personal data and share it around the school in this way if they’re concerned? Surely reporting it would be the thing to do. Perhaps they are the ones being targeted? Is this fact? Hearsay? Did it actually happen in the way you’ve described? Has it turned into a rumour-fest with kids fanning the flames? It all feels a bit off. I would imagine the safeguarding team are already on it. You won’t be told what’s going on.

Have you considered approaching a solicitor for advice? Maybe a few parents could do this together and find out what can be done, not only about the boy in question, but also (and more importantly) the way that the school management is behaving. I think I might find out what, if anything, the suspended boy's parents are doing too.

I think what I am saying crystalises down to everyone get their ducks in a row and together, bring out the big guns and take the matter as high as necessary (outside the school).

Please don’t drop this, it isn’t normal behaviour by any stretch. A young male should not be left believing this is normal behaviour. The school have made a dangerous decision and I wouldn’t leave it.

we have just finished a court case because if a teacher who sent my child sexual messages and photos via WhatsApp.

Things happen - even in schools!

If these were inappropriate images the police would have to be called. The school can’t deal with this internally. If the images are inappropriate, the boy and anyone he shared them with will face legal consequences