Teachers taking photos outside of school

[Always2022]

Hoping that somebody on here might be able to throw some light on a subject for me. Does anybody know the legalities of a Headteacher taking a photograph of a student after school and outside of the school grounds? I think she was hoping to catch out my ds (16) who is currently suspended for walking out of a class (not for anything violent, but he's clashing with his teacher and has very low tolerance at the moment). He was returning some trainers to a friend after school (outside of the grounds) and turned around to see the Headteacher taking photos of him! My instinct is that it can't be legal but I'm struggling to find the definitive answer to this via their policies on their website.
If anybody has any thoughts or even better knows what the legal standpoint would be, I'd be really grateful if you could comment on this post. Thanks in advance.

No I didn’t. You’re taking this very personally Johnny, maybe take a step back?

Apples and trees and proximity.

You’ve got to admit, this is a pretty bizarre reaction to the idea that a grown adult should behave better than a sixteen year old (struggling!) kid.

Taking pictures of him is bizarre when she could have just spoken to him. Or phoned his parents to say he’d been to school.

Well since OP had driven him there herself she was pretty aware of it already.

The head didn’t know that though, did she?

There may be an issue with data protection or similar.
The ecoectation would be that, if the photograph is for work purposes, it wouldn't be taken or held on a personal device.
Down loaded to a school server or printed off and put in a file.
But if the head is holding the picture on a device after it has been used for the purpose that was intended...... Etc. But it woukd really only be an issue if it was repeat behaviour.

@Johnnysgirl well if you read the message - against talk guidelines. Quite clear on that from MNHQ.

@PriamFarrl their punishment is the suspension.

No. The punishment is that they don’t go to school and see their friends, they they get told off by their parents. 3 days off school would be seen as a reward to many. No child is upset to miss double maths.

It's been established that taking photos of children on public property is perfectly legal. Its been pointed out that a Headteacher could very reasonably take photos of one of their students for completely legitimate safeguarding reasons, and yet there's still people moaning about how the head has been unprofessional. It's not unprofessional to uphold the safeguarding of the children in your school. School staff record lots of things, there's CCTV in most schools, they'll take photos of children for displays, student files, websites, evidence, all sorts of reasons. And because of that, there are systems and training in place to ensure that the images are handled properly.

Based on what OP has told us, the only person who has been unreasonable here is the OP, and she's admitted that. If my child had received a 3 day exclusion, there's not a chance in hell I'd be dropping him off at the end of school, outside the school gates, to meet his friends (and hand back some trainers).

@PriamFarrl the school cannot stop a child from seeing friends when suspended or even excluded permanently.

There are some very odd ideas on how much power schools have over children outside of school hours on this thread.

I’m not saying that the school have that power.

What I’m saying is that most parents with a child who was being seriously punished by their school would continue the punishment at home by grounding them. They certainly wouldn’t be ferrying them around to allow them to see their friends 15 minutes after the suspension ended.

No, most parents with a struggling sixteen year old would not be heaping more punishments on top. They’d be looking at why their kid finds school so difficult. Or so you’d hope.

I hope most parents wouldn't be taking their child outside school 15 minutes after the suspension ended. I'd hope most parents could articulate why that wouldn't be a good idea.

Some students do find school difficult, and for a huge variety of reasons. Sometimes that reason is that their parent has crap boundaries and the student struggles when school enforce boundaries.

I often find your idealistic view of school jarring with my real life experience pumper. Pastoral care is vital; letting kids run amok in school is shit for everyone, most importantly the kids who want to learn.

I don’t recognise your username, so I couldn’t tell you what I think of your views, jarring or not. There’s a difference between running amok and helping struggling kids.

No but a school can set parameters of a suspension / temporary exclusion. Part of which I'd imagine was to not approach pupils at the school gate.

They must have serious concerns to put that in place though (I'm a pastoral lead in a large comp) and to be collecting evidence rather than cirrecting the bahaviour suggests they are out of options and looking for supporting evidence to exclude.
In my role I'd be approaching the Ed authority with concerns that the parent hadn't put plans in place at home to meet his educational needs during the exclusion.
I'd be asking social services for an assessment, specifically regarding the mother bringing him to the school gates. That's curious behaviour.

I'd make a suggestion about what I feel the pupil is involved in, but I think the post woukd get deleted.

Parent should go down the route of a "subject access request" regarding data held on her son. Because I'm certain the school have more evidence and will have discussed it in meetings.

The child should be given work by the school and there is a legal expectation that the parents home school.

It's not a punishment, its a means of managing a situation. Breathing space, if you like, to put off the inevitable next set.