Safeguarding at nursery!

[Katiexk]

I’ve recently started working at a nursery, it’s only been a month and I don’t have much experience. However I have just learnt that a staff member uses the online journal at home outside of work hours. By logging in at home she has access to all their information, pictures, videos and parents information on her personal phone.
Is this illegal? Is she breaking any rules.
It doesn’t sit right with me, but I want to know if it is worth reporting?
She also said the managers do not know.

It would depend on:

1. the policies and procedures of the nursery
2. is she using log in details given by the nursery or has she obtained the password by dishonesty
3. does the nursery expect the practitioners to have the opportunity to complete work at home

I ask this as at one nursery, we used tapestry and only the management had the password to use on separate devices while in work we used their tablets. Another nursery I worked at used family where each practitioners individual account was linked to their personal email address so therefore accessible at home but conditions attached in the policy.

Also, if I is either of the two apps I mentioned, the manager will know. They both timestamp everything and tapestry especially keeps a log of times when everyone logs in, completes an observation, edits, deletes, and logs out - parents and staff.

I’m almost 100% certain my DDs key workers at nursery use ParentZone at home. I get updates at the weekend & in the evenings.. doesn’t concern me at all. It’s no different to them updating it within the nursery building 🤷🏼‍♀️

My elder kids teachers also certainly use SeeSaw at home, again, it’s updated in the evenings & occasionally weekends (poor teachers 😭).

I’ve no idea if they use a personal device or not but I do know that both my cousin & friend who are teachers are not provided with a work laptop & do all school based stuff on their personal laptops..

I'm a nursery nurse and we use tapestry at home to update and log our key children. It's fine.

There should be an Acceptable Use policy in place. The key point is that photos of children, and personal data should not be saved on personal computers/gadgets. It’s ok to access a school server from home, to access and use photos that are saved on the server (which is secure), or access an online site to type information, but no personal information or photos can be saved on personal computers. Likewise, if a photo is taken on a personal phone, this should be deleted as soon as it’s transferred to the server, or a secure site, and this should be specified in the Acceptable Use Policy, or a policy about use of photos in the setting.

There is literally no way to know that people who work with children are trustworthy, in fact anyone wanting to harm children purposefully goes to work with children and are only banned if they are caught. There's loads of examples of people employed to care for children hurting children

But working at home and logging into the nursery system to do some work doesn’t change this? There will still be controls in place in the system.

@LittleBearPad

There is literally no way to know that people who work with children are trustworthy, in fact anyone wanting to harm children purposefully goes to work with children and are only banned if they are caught. There's loads of examples of people employed to care for children hurting children

But working at home and logging into the nursery system to do some work doesn’t change this? There will still be controls in place in the system.

Yes, logging onto a secure system from home is fine, as long as no photos or data are saved/stored on personal computers or other gadgets.

I get updates posted to Tapestry at all sorts of times including evenings and weekends. I’m sure DD’s keyworker isn’t in the office at 10pm so she must be accessing at home. They aren’t allowed their phones outside the staff room, access to Tapestry and all photos and videos are on the nursery ipads only and they don’t leave the premises. But they can log in to the app from elsewhere. It doesn’t worry me unduly.