Worried about texts from son's school - teacher's input gratefully received

[TinselTownley]

Like many school's, my son's uses a group text messaging system which I know uses data from a specified field in SIMs.

A few weeks ago, I received one that said (spelling and grammar as received):

'early yers. coffee mornin 8 - 11 niche tobarcco and oral help. check. All welcome'.

I rang the school asking what it meant and they said they could not tell me. Within minutes I received another text that said:

'We apologize for the previous text you may have received. It was a hoax. Please ignore.'

I called the school again and expressed my grave reservations that either they have given my data to a third party or that someone in the school is using the system to send 'hoax' messages to parents using said data.

They have not responded to my concerns, despite my putting them in writing and are continuing to use the system. Indeed, yesterday, I received another semi-literate invitation to a coffee morning signed off 'Lindsay'.

I have a number of concerns about the school not least that neither the staff nor Head seem to think this is worrying.

What would be your response to a worried parent who had received such messages and, for other parents, how would you respond? My son is in reception. I had to google 'niche tobacco', once I had ascertained what an earth they were trying to type.

Are you the only parent who is receiving these messages? How many have there been? I can't believe that no other parents are concerned enough to also speak to the Head about this.

What system does the school use? I would write to the Head again and specify a time period within which I required a reply. If nothing is forthcoming, complain to the Governors.

I know enough about Group Call, the system they use, to know that the messages must have gone to everyone and were sent from within the school.

We live in a part of town that has lots of cheap housing and a lot of apathy towards education. The area is mostly Asian and Eastern European. I rather get the impression that the school, in a rather racist fashion, takes the view that communications are a waste of time. Everytime they talk to me, they radiate disdain. Everything is too much trouble and I should take the sloppy communications and stop asking things like 'why do you not provide breakfast at breakfast club?'.

I have tried issuing a deadline but they have just ignored it. They have no complaints policy on their website and refuse to tell me what it is. Their governors are not listed either, nor is their data protection policy.

They clearly feel I'm making a fuss but, coupled with other things, like telling my childminder my son wasn't there one day when she went to pick up (he was but I had a terrifying ten minutes of not knowing where my 4 year old was), it is a genuine concern to me.

I would write to the governors listing all of your concerns. I do believe you can contact ofsted directly now too. In my school if you had complained a few times about the text messages the head would have made a point of catching you at the end of day/ calling you at work. We are also in an 'Asian area' and communication is very important to us. We have an 'open door' policy for parents, a parents room, text messaging and an award winning website. I don't think the families within your community should affect the level if home-school communication.

The Data Protection Act applies to schools as much as anyone else (apart from government)

www.education.gov.uk/researchandstatistics/datatdatam/dataprotection/a0064534/data-protection

They have to publish a complaints procedure and list of governors. If you can't find it, call your LA and ask them.