WWYD? Whatsapp Group Worries

[PassTheGinPlease]

DD is Year 7. She's doing well at school but has had the odd bullying experience, all dealt with by school.

She, like most kids her age, has a mobile phone, which she has for texts and calls only, she doesn't have social media or WhatsApp and she only has three of her friends numbers. School have outright banned any use of phones within the school at anytime, they can have them in bags but they must be off all day including lunchtime. As such, she doesn't have lots of numbers as she worries she will be caught collecting them!

She was told a week ago that her half the year group has a WhatsApp group. Now, at 11/12 they aren't old enough for accounts on there but I'm not their parents and everyone handles social media differently.

Today she has been told by a peer that within this group, kids like her who aren't on it or haven't been invited are being slagged to death. A meme was posted of an overweight lady singing badly and someone had tagged it "if (Gins DD) was fat she would look like this, she's shit at singing". Apparently this caused much hilarity and slagging off by others. The girl who told DD said she had been chucked off the group and blocked as she told them it was out of order what they were writing.

I'm not sure where we stand with it. DD is obviously and understandably upset, but as we've not directly seen it, it was done on mobile and outside of school, will they do anything and in fact, can they do anything regardless of whether the girl gives names of the culprits?

Any advice would be great

Sounds horrendous! Definitely talk to the school. I suspect they will be able to find a way into the group and shut it down.

Has the girl got screenshots? School will probably tackle if so, even if it’s out of school.

But stand firm not getting whatsapp. It’s poison for kids of that age in groups like you describe

My Friend had this with their DD at school. My DS was on the same WhatsApp group as her DD (he hadn't been on his phone due to a ban so wasn't aware of it) but I was able to look through what was said. My friend reported it straight to the school, and they dealt with it appropriately. They also sent a letter to all parents outlining what had happened (no mention of actual details or names for obvious reasons). Speak to the school - they have a responsibility to work with you to stop this.

Thanks for replying all.
DD spoke to the girl today who had told her about the messages and asked whether she had told her parents.
Apparently, the (sensible) girl had indeed told her parents, who have emailed the head of year. Not sure if screenshots have been taken though. Good to know there are sensible kids in her year with parents who handled it straight away.
I would think the school will take it seriously, I had emailed DD's tutor this morning to make her aware but emphasised this was based on rumour, not having seen it myself. She replied after school that the school are aware and currently dealing with it, and a few parents have contacted school about it, so clearly not just DD being abused on it.

Totally agree on the WhatsApp age thing. She doesn't need it, she has texts and school operates a system whereby if they need to pass a message on in school, or we need to let them know something, it's left with student reception who call the parent or send a note to the pupil. I really want to keep her away from group messaging and stuff like Snapchat for as long as possible, she drives me mad enough watching YouTube!

Fingers crossed this will make the majority of the rest of her year groups parents follow suit and delete it.

We had an issue with the y6 WhatsApp group, one of the girls decided to catfish her with a boy in her classes name and picture and then block her and share it in the group chat... luckily my daughter showed me the messages and didn’t say or send anything bad but the school wasn’t interested in getting involved in individuals, they did however have an afternoon internet safety course after, I think all these social media platforms should be for minimum 16+ My daughters 11 and just wants to be part of the group, we’ve since deleted WhatsApp and we stick to an iMessage group chat (that thankfully backs up to her iPad indoors that we regularly check now)