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?

It sounds like your daughter and her friends are bullying this boy.
I kept a diary as a teenager- with polaroid pictures of boys and girls in my year and my thoughts. This just sounds like the modern version.

I am genuinely surprised how this thread has gone, and how the OP daughter is construed as a bully for not wanting to have her picture taken by or talk to a boy who has kept a detailed folder on her with pictures he took, and notes on her.

He can do this because the school gave him a camera and permission to use it.

His behaviour shows he shouldn't be trusted, as he has used it for his own personal crushes or fantasies. That is not appropriate.

Imagine if a male colleague was doing the staff photos - and you subsequently found out he had little labelled folders on several female colleagues with images he had taken of them.... would you still want to pose for him? Sit next to him at work or share a lift to the Xmas do?

Anyhow, tldr - girls asserting their boundaries around sexual behaviour isn't bullying.

I honestly cannot deal with the replies on this thread and the minimising of this boys behaviour.

If I have this right, this boy has photographs of the girls, in folders labelled with girls names on his iPad. The girls feel uncomfortable about that but are being told to be nice to the boy.

FUCK that. How dare they minimise the girls feelings and once again, telling girls to ignore it and not to ostracise the boy.

Also, why has mumsnet turned into an absolute shitshow with pile ons on every single thread??

I would feel very uncomfortable with this too, OP.

This child has gathered photos from a range of sources to illustrate the folders dedicated to 15 specific girls. He has access to the social media files and continues to have a school camera to take photos of other children. This doesn't sound right at all. I'm with a previous poster, withdraw consent for the school to take pictures of your daughter, and ask that all previous ones on file are deleted.

Writing a diary is fine, as is (up to a point!) taking surreptitious photos and making notes of people's movements. And no-one should have their private stuff bruited about.

But the boy's behaviour is entirely a matter for the school, not the OP. The OP's actual problem is that the girls are being threatened with punishment for not wanting to be his friend any more.

Well why should they, now they know what hes been doing? And why should they let him carry on taking photos of them, if they don't want to? Are they permitted no agency? They should of course be polite.

They weren’t my friends in the first place, In my case they were bullies.

WTF?

He may need intervention, but if women and girls are told to not name what they see before their own eyes that sends a fucking awful message.

Why? Why should he be protected by his victims, potential victims?

Why the fuck should they 'be kind'?

It's one thing for the justice system to treat him like a child who needs help - I understand that. But the girls he's been 'collecting' and other girls that have been freaked out by this have absolutely no obligation not to say how his actions have made them feel.

ETA - And nor do their parents when they're speaking on the girls' behalf, like the OP.

@fromthegecko

They should of course be polite.

Why?

Always pays to be polite to your enemies: gives them one less weapon against you 😎

My bedroom wall was full of topless NSync or Backstreet boys posters, also had pictures of the hot guys in the school, not sure how I got them but i was a teenager I wasn't creep! What the hell!

Fuck that game-playing. That's just reframing the usual 'keep your head down' shit as some kind of strategic plan.

It's not. It hasn't worked so far. Women and girls need to say stuff out loud, loudly. All of us, for ourselves and each other, if we're to have a hope in hell of a world where we're considered to be fully human.

Sounds like diaries we had in the 80’s, before things could be immortalised on social media. I cringe when I think of things I wrote in my diary, and I’m sure a lot of teens back then wrote ‘creepy’ stuff. You’re over thinking and over reacting.

Tbh, if he has included parts of the school's media files that are not in the public domain for his own personal use, that would be a GDPR breach as it wouldn't be the intended purpose. Can you talk to the school about it from this angle?

Did you often write about 10 boys at a time? Some younger than you by 2/3 years? Do you think those kids should’ve been forced to be nice to you and made to keep talking to you after they read those things about themselves, no matter how uncomfortable it made them feel?

Can we also stop pretending that boys and girls are exactly the same?

The girls feel uncomfortable about this boy having pictures of them on his device.

It's not comparable to you having some posters up. Stop downplaying boys inappropriate behaviour and how girls feel about it.

@Savethegirls and Yes I’m livid that its the girls’s responsibility to understand boys behaviour and suck it up because guess what? They should expect lot worse as the grow up.

I don't see why girls should be treated differently than boys. People do things we don't like, and we have to accept that as a part of life. People don't have a right not to be offended.

When I was at school, I was the butt of girl's jokes due to being ugly. Offensive? Yes. But there's nothing I could do about it... an important aspect of maturity is understanding that there are things that will annoy or upset you, and you have to learn how to process that.

I would speak with the Safeguarding lead at school. And note their response.
If not happy, contact your local.safegusrding team and report the incident to them.

It is concerning for a pupil to be creating folders containing photos of girls (do the girls know their photos are being taken).

If you think it's a safeguarding concern school have not taken seriously, you report it to mash. That's the process.

Whether they take it seriously is another matter but that's the process

yeaj op, can you?

only he hasn’t has he? Because it’s just kids chatting shit.

For those saying about we should be supporting the victims: yes, absolutely, we should amplify the voices of women and girls and believe them when they report untoward behaviours.

The issue here is that: the school have investigated what has happened and have drawn a clear line. Schools have a duty to investigate all safeguarding incidents like this, they are also mandated to report criminal activity to the police. All schools are also safeguarding audited (I know how intense these are because I've been through one and despite having meticulous records, I feel like I'd been through a meat grinder backwards) and all records have to be available for OFSTED visits to show how these complaints/issues have been handled.

I know if the school have told people to delete/ suspended the person who spread the screenshots and have told the 'victims' to stop sharing etc there is a good reason for that, that we are not party to.

Does that mean we are not supporting victims? No.

It means that this incident should NOT have been shared on social media or Mumsnet as it perpetuates a witch hunt against a teen boy who we cannot possibly know all the facts about. It invites speculation and stretching of truths/ gang mentality to build.

As I said in my previous post: if the OP has genuine concerns it has been brushed under the carpet/ is untoward then they need to contact the police (non emergency) and formally complain but this thread is very 'unique' and I am sure that staff involved in the incident from school and the young boy's parents would recognise the details too.

Until all the facts are known (and they won't be because they will be confidential for a reason) this thread is doing nothing but causing harm and schools have strict social media policies for a reason.

Seriously?

1. Girls have shown screenshots to their parents
2. His parents have called girls parents (including me) to say its not that bad just fantasy
3. Deputy has suspended a few boys for sharing the images
4. Deputy spoke to girls about not excluding him, saying nothing is wrong
5. some of parents left a common activity (external to school) after which he complained to school saying Girls are excluded him.

what right does the school have to ask girls to not exclude him for an external activity that has nothing to do with them

Why don't you think that's true?

Where does it say that OPs daughter has been asked to stop bullying the boy?

The OP isn't demonising the boy, whoever shared the content on his device has bullied and demonised him. They should face consequences.

Do not minimise girls feelings when something like this happens. They are children and should not have to deal with this shit. Their feelings are completely valid.

Do you accept that, if any of them knew you were doing this, they had the right not to want to interact with you?