Head teacher's attempt to cracking down on social media use by parents

[TamaraHiddlestoned]

Does anyone have experience of a primary HT trying to limit parents' discussion of school standards & behaviour on social media?
Our HT wants to prevent any mention of the school or staff by any parent & in any context.
Aside from the impracticalities of this, and assuming that no laws are broken, does the HT actually have any power to do this?

Thanks for helping me to understand!

The head would do better to remind parents of the ways in which questions and concerns can be raised within the school. More effective feedback systems- parents forums, coffee mornings etc.....

We have a private chat group for my DDs class it's great for planning things like parties and what they are meant to take in to school. We have even done two class camping trips in Holidays. Our Head really does not like it but it's a really handy thing to have. The previous head had a FB group which was private but the current head shut it down

A parent at my son's school got thoroughly bollocked for (fairly lightheartedly) complaining on Facebook about 7 dressing up days in a 5-week period, including 1 with only 2 days' notice and another that requested we knit something. She had raised it with the school too.

The headteacher asked her to delete the post. This didn't go down well. The parent refused, and has since defriended most of us school mums.

The lesson learned was that headteachers and parents are all equally bonkers.

I understand the issue above tbh. 7 in 5wks is bonkers.

No-one was happy about it, butterfly. But it upset the teachers, who put a lot of effort into enriching the curriculum and making learning fun. They didn't like having their efforts publicly disparaged, and that is fair enough.

(My personal view is that there is no need to enrich it through dress up - indeed, if that's your 'go to' tool to make a topic interesting, there's a problem... I bloody hate dress up days.)

No-one was happy about it, butterfly. But it upset the teachers, who put a lot of effort into enriching the curriculum and making learning fun. They didn't like having their efforts publicly disparaged, and that is fair enough.

No professional gets it right all the time. Either you develop a slightly thicker skin than these teachers, or you learn to take reasonable criticism on board.

These attempts to shut down reasonable public comment are pretty concerning, coming from people whose wages are paid out of your taxes.

Bloody hell 7 in 5 weeks. Our FB group, would, actually have been on fire about that.

Agree with HT and will support it

We have a school parents secret Facebook group. Before I joined there was a flare up some parents were critical of something, former head waded in. Has run for years without incident - people very careful not to say anything controversial. Useful resource for second hand violins, lost jumpers and how much dinners actually cost. But it's used by sensible grown ups. Several governors and teachers also parents who are on it.

OP said that HT wants to prevent "any mention of the school or staff by any parent & in any context"... that's definitely too much!

Glad to hear a head teacher trying to tackle this. If you have a complaint or concern, discuss it with the school. I'm not on Facebook, but the things my friends tell me about our schools Facebook page make me want to take my school out of the school.

I don't support the ban (and I'm a teacher!)

Firstly, it's not exactly enforceable. If I wrote something inflammatory about DD's school (I wouldn't, but if I did) and shared it only with my 'friends'.... I suppose one of them might screenshot it and take it to the head, but that's highly unlikely, and so they couldn't enforce the ban.

Also, I'm part of a Facebook group for parents of DD's class. All the posts are along the lines of "X has lost his bag/jumper/bottle, let me know if you spot it anywhere" or "I've lost the menu - what's for school dinners this week?" Quite mundane really, but I find it helpful and would not appreciate the HT trying to shut it down if one or two parents made unwise remarks.

As a teacher, I wouldn't like it if a parent (or student) complained about me on social media. But I probably wouldn't know if they did, and I don't want to ban all discussion of the school just incase someone decides to write "Mrs Wyf is a bitch" on their FB

As long as what they say is not libellous, then I think schools should, and will have to, suck it up.They are publicly funded services and seem to think they should be immune from adverse comment .
A friend of mine got a letter from the school complaining about a post she had made on her wall moaning about how she felt a teacher l had not made a reasonable adjustment for her DS's special needs.She refused.One of DS friends got in trouble for saying he didn't think he would do well in a test because he didn't think Dr X was a very good teacher. WTF everyone is entitled to an opinion! I think teachers should be more worried about 'rate my teacher' tbh

Wyfe unless it's a closed group LAs are searching for these type of posts in an effort to clamp down ...seems to be quite successful

If you have a complaint or concern, discuss it with the school.

I put nothing on facebook that I wouldn't, or haven't raised with the school. But there are some issues on which parents as a group can be more effective in supporting the school or addressing a shared concern. The uniform cost issue I mentioned previously for example. Individually we were all dismissed. Over FB we were able to express shared opinion from 76 families in 24 hours, and somehow then the school was able to get the costs reduced by 1/3rd. Something like the 7 dress up days in a half term also would be an example of something a collective opinion is useful on (and the teachers feeling hurt about that really need to think about the cost, time and energy for parents). Individually we'd be ignored on something like that.

Our HT is all over twitter - promoting the school relentlessly like some massive PR exercise. I'd be VERY pissed off if she tried to stop parents asking questions, sharing info and actually grumbling and problem-solving should they so wish.

What exactly can the HT do, if parents ignore this 'ban'?

I support not using FB to discuss school. But HT has worded it badly.

For example - it's not unusual to post a pic of your DC with something they made at school whilst they are in uniform.

Hit would be better off reminding parents of the processes to raising concerns and the laws surrounding social media.

Well if you are slandering people then it should be restricting.
I think discussing named children is unfair if it is about poor work or behaviour.
I don't blame the ht.

See, this is an opportunity for schools to be proactive with social media, and they are ducking it.

Why not set up official FB groups for each year, with a school representative in each (head of year, or something?) and a firm policy on what is allowed and not allowed - just like in many other FB groups.

Use the communications tools available and they could head off a lot of conflicts before they got out of hand. You'd need clear rules (such as leaving an appropriate amount of time for school rep to respond, as you can't expect them to be online day and night in case someone has to moan about their wee Johnnie getting told off in school).

What can LAs do if the parent is making a truthful statement though? If I posted on here that my LA are one of the worst in our local region for finalising EHCPs and that they had let children with SN down, then it wouldn't paint them in a good light; but it would be true.

My post is in response to mrz's post about LAs searching social media.

I don't think a school would need to suggest a ban on parents posting about the school on social media if the school has sufficient opportunities for parents to provide feedback to the school and strong relationships with the parents.

I can think of 4 different ways I could raise issues at DD's school in the last year, one of which being a member of SMT, often more than one, being on the playground every day at drop-off and pick up. There may have been even more opportunities that I've forgotten.

However it takes years to build up a good relationship with parents and some schools don't have a culture of openness.

I do agree that in some cases hearing from parents en masse is useful. But again it should be avoidable as things like changing uniform are likely to cause strong reactions from parents, so you consult them first.

I'm not saying it's easy, time, effort and thought needs to go in. And it probably varies depending on the demographics of the school. You certainly can't please all of the parents. I think that 50% of the parents at DD's school would complain that we get too many emails and texts from the school and the other 50% that we get too few.

One of my main concerns with out school's Facebook is not just the unkind things said about teachers but the way people gang up on individual parents. I've heard of (often new) parents asking innocent questions and having dozens of bitches accusing them of being thick and worse. Yes, these are usually the mothers of the nasty kids too.

Perhaps you'd like to post something and let us know?