Class names - is giving them to parents a safeguarding issue?

[SW1A1AA]

Does your school publish class lists? Our school has stopped doing this for safeguarding reasons. It makes organising parties or getting to know new kids and families very hard. Can anyone tell me how a list of children's names in a school calendar compromises pupils' safeguarding?

Presumably if parents give their consent it's not an issue

Regarding the data protection issue

I'm a governor at a private school and we're trying to get our DP policy up to date

We used to give out class lists (complete with contact info)
We now have an opt in- if the parent doesn't give express permission to the school to share the contact info, they're not on the list. (We tried to do an opt out but DP best practice doesn't advise that)

So now we have partial class lists.

It's mostly done informally through whatsapp

I've been class rep for 2 years and the way we got around it was to ask the teacher to email all parents, and ask them to email me with their contact details and child's name, if they wanted to be included on a list which would be made available to only those parents who had opted in, to help with party planning and play dates etc.

We live in a transient community and I agree it's harder to get to know the new families as a result, but the child's right to privacy has to come first.

We have class lists but they are organised by the parents. The school allows the class parent rep to send out a request in school bags but the rest is purely parent to parent. Parents then have the choice whether to opt in and how much information to give. They vary in how complete they are so if you want a whole class list for a party/Christmas cards you may need a bit of detective work to get all the kids first names.

Yes we do have class lists organised by class reps - name of child, parents, nanny, address, phone numbers, birthday. Made me v uncomfortable but nobody opted out. Private school btw.

The only list we were ever given was a first name list at chrustmas in reception for children to do Christmas cards.

I would be furious if my email address was dished out to all and sundry.

As to how do I know the other children's names? By talking to my child.

I wouldn't consent to that information (names, contact details) being shared with all parents of my dc's classmates. If a school even asked me to consent to it I'd be a bit . A list of first names of all children in the class, fine- I can see why you might want it for Xmas cards or birthday invitations or similar- but more than that is just not on.

River

I can see at this stage in reception, DCs might not know their whole class or might want "Evie with the brown hair but not Evie with the yellow hair" at their parties, making writing invites a tad awkward.

I think a teacher would help out on an individual basis though (ours did!) even if it's "oh, you mean Evie J"

From a teacher point of view, a class list of first names only is fine. It really isn't anything to do with data protection or safeguarding.

From a parent point of view, publishing addresses and phone numbers is insane and not something I would ever agree to.

Ours used to give a list of firstname - surname on request (for party invites etc) but stopped for "privacy reasons".

First names are still listed on the coat pegs/trays for anyone with a notebook, and I have a child with a freakish memory who knows all his classmates' birthdays and ordinal number by age, so it makes no odds. If you want to invite a child to tea, get a note into their bookbag with your mob number.

DCs last school used to produce a proper bound book each year with names, addresses, mobiles, e-mails of boyh parents of each child. You were automatically included unless you opted out - which was frowned upon.

It was a bloody nightmare.

Both.

Never had a list like that. At secondary, the child knows who they are in class with. Reception age I took a photo of the coat hooks, all the first names are on there and that's enough for birthday invitations.

I've never had a class list. Not from nursery, nor the 3 primary schools, nor the secondary. Not one class list. I don't think it's because the school decided not to give me one, I think it's because the school didn't do class lists.

Thinking of it, there weren't class lists when I was at school either, or my brothers. I never heard of class lists until dd was 8ish and a new-to-the-school mum spoke of them asking if we had them. No one had.

I would be livid if my child's school handed out our address and contact details. Unless they have sought your specific permission they are in breach of the DPA.

As for class lists, at Christmas my DDs class (primary) is given a list of first names only. Invites can be given to the TA to go in book bags and if your children are friendly enough to request a playdate, I'm guessing you've probably spoken to the parent on the playground.

We do have a closed Facebook group for school parents which makes it a bit easier to contact other parents.

DCs last school used to produce a proper bound book each year with names, addresses, mobiles, e-mails of boyh parents of each child. You were automatically included unless you opted out - which was frowned upon.

That is highly debatable. The ICO says that clear consent is needed from the individual concerned before publishing this kind of information. That may mean an opt in is needed rather than an opt out. The ICO also says that they would not recommend publishing children's personal details for child protection reasons. I suspect that school would be in trouble with the ICO if anyone reported them.

We've never been provided with class lists for either DD and have managed to invite their friends to tea/parties without any drama (even though I've only taken/collected once a week). If I really needed to see the children's names written down, I could log onto the class MLE which has a folder for each child in the class.

In all the schools I've taught at, we've never given out class lists. At Christmas, if children/parents want to write a card for every child, I let them make a list from the tray labels.

We are near a women's refuge. The women come from all sorts of places around the country. Many of them eventually come and live in Council housing here with their children. In most cases it is really important that they remain anonymous, so pictures of children on websites, in local papers is definitely verboten. I reckon it's a lot easier for school simply not to produce class lists at all.

Oh yes, and there were at least two children in dd's cohort who had been adopted away from very abusive families. They needed strict anonymity too.

As an Administrator in a Primary School in a fairly small community, we no longer provide class lists. We used to do so - first names only - but now refuse requests but mainly because our workload is just too great.

In primary school, the class reps asked parents by letters in book bags for details for a list. This made play dates, parties easier. A few people didn't go on the lists. The school would never do it.

At secondary the Head of Year asked people in his newsletter to email the PTA rep if they wanted to be on the contact list.

Schools don't give our the info , but contact lists are useful.

Has anyone come across Classlist.com? Our PTFA have set this up (although annoyingly didn't first discuss it with the school administrators - I'm one of them!). Parents opt in and can use it to share information by class/year group or contact each other on a one to one basis. There's a facility for organising lift sharing as well. Would recommend - although discuss with your school administrator/secretary first as it will impact on their workload!

Please don't ask the office staff to distribute your party invites. We don't have the time.

When my DD was at primary, the class rep used to send round a note in the first week or so of term stating that she would be circulating contact details to all parents in the class, and asking you to fill in name/address/phone/ email if you wanted to be included in the list. Could fill in everything or, say, just phone number. It was quite clearly stated that if you didn't send the form back, your child's details would not be included on the list.

Everyone seemed happy with this, but there were always a couple that didn't send the form back and then moaned when their child wasn't included on the list.

Class lists with first names only here. And where there is more than one Jasmine, then it's Jasmine B, Jasmine S.
Publishing this is a no no.
I don't even consent to photos of my DD to be uploaded on the school website. Information about children and the school should be limited. If parents or a prospective parent need more, imo they can contact the office.

Classroom plans on websites can be a security issue. I knew of a case where a child's father wasn't permitted through the school gates (acrimonious divorce..custody battle) but he knew which class his son was in and how to find it! because an arse of a head teacher had published the site plan on the web