The Use of Digital Media

As you are no doubt aware, the use of digital media is ever increasing and is are liable, (and if used correctly) a safe way of communicating with our family and friends. The school uses photographs of children in school materials, on the secure platform – Class Dojo, the school website and also in newspapers or other approved media related to school activities. Children are only ever identified by their first name and no contact details are ever disclosed. In our opinion, this should not pose a risk to our pupils and it is a lovely way of celebrating our successes as a school. Details of how we use personal data such as photographs is covered in the Schools Privacy Notice. Where consent is required, Parents will be asked to sign to give their consent to such usage when their child joins our school and this agreement will be kept on file for the whole of the child’s time at Elmore Green Primary School.

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For school events, when parents or carers want to take photographs or videos for their personal use, it has been decided that they may be taken provided they are for personal use only. We request that Parents only upload photographs of their own children onto any social networking sites (Facebook etc.) For Safeguarding reasons, any images containing other children or staff must not be uploaded. We may contact appropriate individuals or organisations to remove photographs/videos that fall under this category.

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The Use of Mobile Telephones In School

We respectfully remind parents and carers that mobile phones should only be used to take photographs of pupils at events such as sports day, assemblies and concerts. Mobile phones should not be used in or around the school grounds unless you have been invited to do so. This is in order to comply fully with the government welfare requirements expected in school. We ask that NO photographs of children, other than your own, are uploaded to any social media website – in accordance with our Safeguarding policies. We also ask that no photographs of staff are uploaded.

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Social Networking

Social Networking Sites such as Facebook are widely used and enjoyed by the majority of parents and older children, despite having a minimum age of 13. However, sometimes these sites are used to publicly discuss matters which may include personal disagreements between pupils at the school or for parents to vent frustrations about school matters.

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Comments made on any social networking site about an individual can be considered to be ‘defamatory’ and lead to the onset of legal action being taken against those people who made the comments. Therefore, we feel it is important to remind users of these sites to bear this in mind before posting comments.

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Social Networking Sites are not as ‘private’ as we might like to think and careless or inconsiderate use of these sites can cause unnecessary distress to the individuals concerned, or have an adverse impact on our school in general and this is something our school seeks to avoid.

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Our school works hard to create a safe and happy environment for our parents, staff and most importantly our children and should any parent have concerns about either their child or our school in general, then we would urge you to contact us directly to discuss the issues personally. We understand that legislation regarding the use of mobile technology changes, it seems, on a daily basis. However, please can we seek to reassure you that it is our pupils’ health, safety and welfare that remains our core priority at all times.

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