Facebook - if a pupil posts something nasty about another pupil

[redrubyshoes]

about an incident that happened out of school at a party they were at together should the school get involved or is it something for the parents/children to sort out?

Think the schools involvement should be a firm reminder of zero tolerance to cyber bullying, though the parents may need to sort out the actual comments made.

Parents, school can't police everything. They can remind pupils about bullying and cyberbullying though. Plus if the child is under 13, they shouldn't be on fb anyway.

Our school steps in over FB issues between students. Even if it starts online it will eventually cross over into school ime.

How do school know about this? Are there issues in school? Is cyber bullying part of the bullying policy?
Think school AND parents will need to be part of this if its serious.

I think where possible facebook arguments should be sorted out by the children themselves, with parents talking to each other if needs be as it really isn't the schools job.

However If one of the children involved or their parents have asked the school to help them sort it out then I would expect the school to talk to the children about cyberbullying, and obviously if the comments were to carry on in school or its part of a larger issue then the school would have to step in but otherwise I don't think the school needs to be involved if its a few nasty comments about something outside school.

If it continues into school, it's school business.

We would notify the parents of the bully - who will at this point usually be rather surprised that their dc is on FB or whatever at all, as they are genuinely under the impression that they have 'banned' it (but then handed dc a lovely new smartphone or ipad).

But it's only school's problem if it's actually causing issues in lessons or social time . If it isn't, then it's none of our concern what went on between students at an out of school party.

If it is threatening, tell the school. They need to know so that they can support you as it is cyber bullying. Take screen shots of the abuse so that you have evidence as the online stuff can be edited by the poster.

If it is threatening to children the police will become involved. That can come as a shock to people who have made a stupid comment on FB to find that the police arrive to discuss it with them.

Dd once showed me something nasty that had been written about a friend. I screenshot it and sent it to school. School got girl in and her mother and she got banned from having phone in school and Ale etc. moved seating in class.
I don't think DDs friend ever actually knew about it as she didn't have facebook, but school more than happy to sort it out.

IME, DD's school have taken any reports of "bullying" on FB very seriously and dealt with them effectively. The children involved reported them to the appropriate staff.

I guess it depends on the school's stance on Facebook. Usually the school tells parents that they don't support the DCs being on Facebook for all these reasons. One of DH's schools has a zero tolerance policy to Facebook and won't get involved, saying that the parents allowed the DC to be on there so they are responsible for the fall out.

Then the parents ignore this, let their DCs have a Facebook account anyway but are straight into school when a problem arises on there.

If it's on Facebook, not sure that's it's a school issue. I think schools have enough to do tbh. If it's a problem in school, they'll deal with it in school, like comments made during class. But comments made on a social network outside school, it's the parents'/ DC's responsibility to sort out. Schools can teach about cyber bullying, but it's the parents' responsibility for how they behave at home.

Ds's school would want to know and they'd come down on them like a ton of bricks!