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Letter from School quoting Abusive Language
Comments
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Okay, so some of my pupils a few years back were sending out inappropriate photos from their mobile phones. They were actually quite shocking.
What do we do?
1. Warn all parents to remind their children over what is appropriate with social media etc with a brief outline of the problem. And contact the parents of the children involved directly.
2. Send out a transcript in the post to every parent in the year group of details of every photo that was taken and where it was taken. So every parent can then link these to the pupils who have been suspended?
Option 2 is a complete overreaction.
Any normal parent or teacher can see that.
There is no difference to the OP's situation.
There is a large difference imo.
If you say children are sending inappropriate photographs people can easily take from that what they are.
What does a parent of a 10 or 11 year old think if the school sends a letter talking about 'seriously inappropriate conversations of a sexual nature'?
As the mother of a 10 year old I wouldn't have thought bestiality or rape.0 -
Totally agree with this, I have a daughter the same age and school year as OP. I also have a 14yo boy, and am aware he and his mates can be pretty insulting to each other. If I'd been sent a letter of the same kind, I'd have kind of assumed my daughter had been repeating something older brother had said and would have thought it on the milder side.larkrisetocandleford wrote: »Really OP you do need to take a step back here. If the school had simply sent a woolly letter alluding to bad language many parents would have assumed it referred to something far less nasty. The school did exactly the right thing in my view and as a parent I would be happy that they had taken the issue so seriously, that is how you protect your children, by being informed, fully informed.
As for it being seen by your child, really? Do you not have personal information that is kept out of the way of your children? I am afraid I see that as a red herring. Once read you have complete control over where it is placed or how it is disposed of, your child will only see it if you do not take steps to prevent that.
Unless I was told otherwise, how would I know what had happened?
If the letter had been sent home in your child's bag, I would be 100% behind your view. Being sent via the post addressed to parent of, then you haven't got leg to stand on in my opinion, that there was a chance child could open the post is down to your own house rules.0 -
Okay, so some of my pupils a few years back were sending out inappropriate photos from their mobile phones. They were actually quite shocking.
What do we do?
1. Warn all parents to remind their children over what is appropriate with social media etc with a brief outline of the problem. And contact the parents of the children involved directly.
2. Send out a transcript in the post to every parent in the year group of details of every photo that was taken and where it was taken. So every parent can then link these to the pupils who have been suspended?
Option 2 is a complete overreaction.
Any normal parent or teacher can see that.
There is no difference to the OP's situation.
Any normal parent or teacher would see that sending photos out would be a serious breach of confidentiality as the people involved could be identified, so not at all analogous. I say that as a parent and a teacher.;)0 -
GobbledyGook wrote: »There is a large difference imo.
If you say children are sending inappropriate photographs people can easily take from that what they are.
What does a parent of a 10 or 11 year old think if the school sends a letter talking about 'seriously inappropriate conversations of a sexual nature'?
As the mother of a 10 year old I wouldn't have thought bestiality or rape.
How would you feel if it was your child?
They'd got carried away on a skype or text conversation and perhaps repeated some things that they didn't really understand or had overhead once. so they get suspended for it.
And then every parent in their year group gets posted a transcript of the conversation.
Every parent in the year group now knows that it's your child that's sent that. (The OP has stated they know who it is!).
The school have left themselves wide open for a quite valid and serious complaint. (And that's before the complaints come in about the content of the letter itself)
IMO, the way this has been dealt with shows a worrying lack of judgement."One day I realised that when you are lying in your grave, it's no good saying, "I was too shy, too frightened."
Because by then you've blown your chances. That's it."0 -
larkrisetocandleford wrote: »Any normal parent or teacher would see that sending photos out would be a serious breach of confidentiality as the people involved could be identified, so not at all analogous. I say that as a parent and a teacher.;)
Read the post please!
I didn't say copies of the photos.
I said transcripts describing the photos!
Sheesh!"One day I realised that when you are lying in your grave, it's no good saying, "I was too shy, too frightened."
Because by then you've blown your chances. That's it."0 -
Many of my daughter's friends come from traditional Muslim families. I think I'm actually pretty liberal compared to many of them. I guess this is another reason why I'm shocked that the school would think it appropriate to send this transcript.
I don't think that it is definite that my daughter and her friends are having similar conversations. I genuinely don't think that they would be talking about screwing their pets and family members. Whilst I take on board that conversations may well also have taken place in the playground, with the supervision of teachers and other adults it seems unlikely that the children would regularly be able to indulge in such strong language and themes without it being picked up earlier.
Yes, but someone's children are doing this and the parents may well have no idea, either.
To be honest, you seem to be taking this as a bit of an insult, as if the school is insinuating it is your child and her friends talking this way.0 -
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Extreme situations call for extreme measures so I'm with the Headteacher on this one and given the fact that I am always clashing with my dd's 'educators',that is surprising!
fizz.x20p Savers Club 2013 #17 £7.80/£120.000 -
How would you feel if it was your child?
They'd got carried away on a skype or text conversation and perhaps repeated some things that they didn't really understand or had overhead once. so they get suspended for it.
And then every parent in their year group gets posted a transcript of the conversation.
Every parent in the year group now knows that it's your child that's sent that. (The OP has stated they know who it is!).
The school have left themselves wide open for a quite valid and serious complaint. (And that's before the complaints come in about the content of the letter itself)
IMO, the way this has been dealt with shows a worrying lack of judgement.
I would be very, very surprised if the parents of the children involved are not aware of the letter going out.
As a parent I'd see the content of the conversation as being indicative of a bigger problem within my daughter's friendship group and would support the actions in stamping it out.
Obviously it's going to depend on the parents because I would be livid because I know my daughter wouldn't have heard that kind of language at home so I'd want the wider issue dealt with.
Plus when it comes to children getting in trouble other parents already often know because the children tell them. The school had to weigh up the risk of complaint from the letter and the risk of complaint from parents whose children informed them of some of the conversations.
I think on this occasion they've made the right call. However, if nothing else the level of disagreements show how tricky schools and heads have it.0 -
If a headteacher can't do their job without offending 1 in 20 of their parents, they should be looking for alternative employment. Most headteachers manage to perform their jobs perfectly adequately without offending parents or sending out letters containing details of offensive conversations.
My school seem to be able to capably manage such incidents without any upset or offence caused. Perhaps the OP's headteacher should take a leaf out of our book.
You are making two assumptions here and you should never assume:
1) Most headteachers manage to perform their jobs perfectly adequately without offending parents or sending out letters containing details of offensive conversations.
You are assuming this - you don't know it, unless of course you are keeping a record of what every headteacher at every school in the country does.
2) My school seem to be able to capably manage such incidents without any upset or offence caused.
You don't know this. You don't know whether there are any parents of pupils at your school who are upset with actions your school has taken. Just because they haven't come to you and told you this doesn't mean there aren't parents who are upset.
The letter the headteacher sent out at the OP's child's school has obviously had an effect on this parent which is to make her aware of it and get her talking about it - well done to that headteacher.0
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