How does your school handle social media?

[MaxWhitlock]

DC school is very active on Twitter, teachers post on their personal Twitters a lot too and probably other social media. DC are frequently posted proudly holding up their work with first name, class and obviously school.

I am not on any social media, I find the idea of broadcasting your life to strangers a bit weird tbf and I am not at all comfortable with my DC being so identifiable. The school photo consent is all or nothing, either you agree to have your DC on school and teacher's social media or they're not allowed any photos at all, not even printed out ones in the classroom. This has got more frequent since everything is online and DC e.g. couldn't be in the Christmas concert as this was put on Twitter.

I have no issues with photos on internal school things or even group Twitter photos where individual DC are not really identifiable but this isn't an option. There is also the small print that says any photos can be used in the Trust marketing information.

How is this handled at other primary schools? Is it usual to have a blanket consent for everything on social media?

We have layers of consent so you can choose the bits you consent to. This is at the school I work at and the school my children go to. Teachers posting it on their own social media is a bit odd in my opinion.

We also have layers of consent but our school isn't on social media so that's not a concern.
We have the class dojo app and lots of things are posted on there either to class, year groups or the whole school but you do have to consent to that.

They could easily put an emoji on your child's face but I suppose on a video it's harder. It's not nice for your child to be excluded from things but on the other hand why should everyone else not do it just because you don't want your child on social media.

We had a photographer from the local press come in recently and our class were in the paper, the teacher spent ages double and triple checking who had permission for press photographs. Its easy to see why your school have an all or nothing approach as it would take ages trying to work out who had permission for what all the time and then double checking because I can imagine you would kick off if your child was on there accidentally when you didn't agree.

DC e.g. couldn't be in the Christmas concert as this was put on Twitter.

That is outrageous (speaking as an adoptive parent). I would be complaining that your child should not be excluded from standard school activities because of the school's social media use.

Policies are a governor level issue, so I would also be looking at escalating this to governors if the HT is intransigent.

There are ways round things so children don't miss out, don't let the school fob you off because they can't be bothered. It doesn't matter whether you have a serious reason not to want them on SM, or 'just' a personal preference. No child should have to not do standard school things because the school wants to post on twitter.

Our primary school has layers of consent.

Class teachers are encouraged to share photos and videos on the school's Twitter account. Descriptions will usually mention the year group and very occasionally the class name, but the child's name is never included.

Sometimes a teacher will post examples of their class' work on their own Twitter account but all work is completely anonymous.

The teachers I've worked with have always done their very best to ensure that no child is left out. If only one child isn't allowed to be shown, that child will usually be the 'class photographer' and involved that way. If there are a group that can't be shown, they will have their picture taken as a group but it just won't appear on social media.

Children who can't appear on social media would never be excluded from an activity because of it. Taking part is the priority. If it means that photos/videos can't be shown on social media then so be it.

Children who can't appear on social media would never be excluded from an activity because of it. Taking part is the priority. If it means that photos/videos can't be shown on social media then so be it.

Exactly, the OPs school seems to have the tail wagging the dog.

Is it the teacher's own social media or is it a 'Teachergram' kind of thing? You know, a Twitter entitled Miss Clarke's Classroom or whatever - Miss Clarke would presumably have her own account aside from that. Personally I wouldn't be posting kids or any identifying on a teachergram anyway so it's a bit of a moot point (I am a teacher).

Where I work, there are school social media accounts (think the secretary and principal have control over these). We're asked to occasionally send in bits for uploading. The parents sign consent forms for it. Don't have anyone who can't be posted online (in my class anyway) so that side of things hasn't been an issue.

They appear to be the teachers' own Twitter accounts, also posts about hobbies and loving the NHS etc. I found a couple by accident after Googling the school Twitter.
I get the point about it being extra work for teachers to filter out who is and isn't allowed in which photos but even a 'school community' vs 'publicly available' would be a start and easy to manage.
It's interesting that governors set the policies, I'd always assumed it was done by the Trust who are very into self-promotion. I do know one of the governors so might ask what the score is. I imagine the Trust are very keen to keep up the constant social media updates though. Interesting that they seem to have a more lax attitude than other schools.

What is the actual IT or social media policy of the school?

If it helps, all the past schools I've worked in (well, the ones since social media became such a thing!), teachers would absolutely not be allowed to post photos of pupils on their personal feeds and even photos of children in official school feeds would not be posted with the name as well. At my current school, we're not even allowed to photograph children's faces on our work ipads, just their work (with no names) or their hands doing whatever the activity is.

Find the policies or ask for a copy at the office. You can then approach the governing body about your concerns if you feel either they're not following their own policy or that the policy isn't rigorous enough.

Many people will feel that some of the steps I've mentioned above are unnecessary and "what is the world coming to". But at the end of the day, schools have to choose their own level of comfort regarding safeguarding when it comes to social media/ photos etc.

The policy says they will use photos and videos in communications and promotions on social media and external agencies e.g. newspapers and parents must have given written consent to this. That is exactly what they have done but it's only a yes/no option so you consent to all social media and Trust promotional publications at the same time as e.g. a photo of your child up in their classroom. It doesn't mention teachers' personal social media but it doesn't rule it out either. I think it covers everything but it doesn't give parents the chance to opt out of social media and I don't suppose for a minute they give a shit about DC missing out. There are 4 or 5 in eldest DC's class that have no photo consent and they are never in the class photos that are posted.

Yes, the wording is ambiguous. I'd not be happy about my children on teachers' personal social media accounts. I would question this with the governing body. Are teachers also allowed to photograph children on their personal devices? Where is the line?

It just goes against so much of what the schools I've worked in have said. At this point, I'd deny permission. The number of times I've had photos of children actually on display in my classroom is small and displays in school often get forgotten about after the initial interest for a few days. The impact of your children not being on them would be minimal.

It's not nice for your child to be excluded from things but on the other hand why should everyone else not do it just because you don't want your child on social media.
Why does a school concert have to be posted on Twitter at all? There's no need whatsoever for schools to,post anything on any SM. Children go to school to learn. As a society we should teach children that not living your life on SM is a good thing. Not everything has to he do documented and posted online.

I have never given consent but as DC get older they're starting to feel more left out as they are shunted to the side for team photos on sports day or whatever. If they were just on Dojo I wouldn't mind but basically everything is made public on Twitter and the Trust can use any image for any promotional reason. Most parents seem fine with it though so I can't see them having any incentive to change it.
I have no idea whether teachers use their own phones to take photos or not.

Bitofachinwag these are my thoughts exactly but I seem to be in the minority.

@PathOfLeastResitance

We have layers of consent so you can choose the bits you consent to. This is at the school I work at and the school my children go to. Teachers posting it on their own social media is a bit odd in my opinion.

This. At my DC schools we ticked consent for different things (eg image used in school, image used in school publications, image used in publication outside of school etc).

I agree teachers putting things on their personal SM is very unusual and seems unprofessional. None of the teachers I know would want to do this even if their school allowed it.

I’d raise this with your school.

We have layers of consent but never post anything on our personal accounts. The school has social media accounts that are run by SLT. If we have something we want to post we send it to them. We don’t use names on posts or have any written names visible either. Once we entered a singing contest with a local radio station, they filmed the singing. The people who couldn’t be on social media sat behind the camera and sang, so they couldn’t be seen.

Meant to add, nobody would be excluded from anything just because of their permissions.

iirc we had 3 levels

• no consent
• consent for internal school use only
• consent including social media

Social media was, like so many above, only posted by a few restricted members of staff who knew to check and filter or 'blob' photos accordingly. When DD went on a residential, they were tweeting regularly but couldn't include her so v.kindly sent DH private tweets so we saw some pictures of her doing the activities too.

I think it is acceptable (but a bit lazy) to only have 1 level of consent, but no way should they be restricting children's activities in school based on photos.

The only time my DDs needed to be excluded (and this was done by discussion with us) was a) when local TV news was covering an event and b) when it was an external activity and consent for potential publicity was needed in order to attend.

@TeenMinusTests

DC e.g. couldn't be in the Christmas concert as this was put on Twitter.

That is outrageous (speaking as an adoptive parent). I would be complaining that your child should not be excluded from standard school activities because of the school's social media use.

Policies are a governor level issue, so I would also be looking at escalating this to governors if the HT is intransigent.

There are ways round things so children don't miss out, don't let the school fob you off because they can't be bothered. It doesn't matter whether you have a serious reason not to want them on SM, or 'just' a personal preference. No child should have to not do standard school things because the school wants to post on twitter.

Just to say policies arent a Governor level issue. Head Teacher’s have a lot of responsibility for determining and setting school policies. The DFE has a set list of statutory policies for schools and who may/may not approve them. There are some that are Governor level but not all.

You can raise a complaint to the Governors about a policy which is a whole different thing.

Yes I sort of realised that after posting, sorry. I know some are governor-reviewed as my DH is a governor, but don't pay attention to the niceties.
Photos of children would come under safeguarding but the school deciding to exclude pupils who didn't have consent wouldn't. That would come under some kind of 'diversity & inclusion' policy I guess - particularly relevant to looked after / adopted children but also all sorts of others , e,g those fleeing domestic violence etc.
I suspect the school is just doing what is best/easiest for them, not the children.

Jeez. They need to review policy. Sounds like the academy trust is putting advertising above children & parent wishes. Our school have one Twitter feed to showcase interesting stuff. Most of the time kids faces aren't seen. If it's a group shot any kids not permitted just aren't on the photos used. My kids prob appear somewhere once a year

Op
I sympathise but I think I might know why they have simply one level. In our school they had a two tier system for a while but invariably some bonkers parents screen shot team photos etc and put on their social media pages despite clear requests not to. In practice it was really difficult to enforce by the school and invariable some photos of kids without permission did leak out.

One level isn't really an issue as far as I am concerned.
Not letting a child be in a Christmas concert because they haven't got photos permission, is an issue.

It is absolutely not ok for teachers to be putting photos of pupils on their personal Twitter accounts. The school needs to review its policy as a matter of urgency. . I wouldn’t be happy about the children being named either, even if it’s only first names. Also not ok to exclude children from activities. All levels of what you’ve said are wrong!

Not all schools have policies that cover personal social media use.

They vary massively. What is an issue at one school is not at another.

Read the school policy first.