Social Media Issues

Dear Parents,

Despite being early in the year, we are already aware of a number of incidents involving our children and their conduct on social media sites and gaming consoles. Although these incidents are happening outside of school, they are having a negative effect on friendships and behaviour in school.

Therefore, I am writing to inform, offer advice and ask for your support with this matter. 

We are being made aware of inappropriate language and conversations amongst our pupils via platforms such as Instagram, WhatsApp and TikTok. Children playing online games against each other is also causing issues particularly with the game Fortnite.

On a very simple level, this should not be happening as such services are all clear in their terms of use that users must be 13 years or over, in the case of WhatsApp this changed in May 2018 to 16 years or over.  Our children at Plantation are not old enough to have these accounts and not old enough to be using these services.  Any such accounts are clearly a breach in those terms of use.

While I understand there may be a conversation at home from your child saying things such as “Everyone else has it!”, and the pressure of wanting your child to not be left out; I would like more and more of our parents to have a united voice in this with our children and say no to such requests.  I would like any child who has taken up an account without your permission to be challenged and the account reported and deleted.

There is much in the media about the social and emotional issues that social media services may be causing in society, particularly amongst teenagers.  We see the impact of this as a school with our young people – children aged 11 years and under. It results in anxiety, arguments, lack of concentration during lessons and friendship issues.

I am sending this letter out to Year 5 and Year 6 parents only as these are the year groups where we are seeing the vast majority of incidents.  

If more and more of us as adults can take these steps with our children then it will help.  It will break down the pressure for us as parents and for our children.  We will continue to talk to our pupils about e-safety and the age restrictions of social media but we need you as parents to take the next step and stop your child accessing these services.  As a parent myself and as your child’s Headteacher your support will mean a lot.

Yours sincerely

Mr S Hanley, Headteacher