We have had an increasing number of comments from parents telling us that a few children in Year 5 and 6 are using WhatsApp irresponsibly outside of the school day. This is taking a considerable amount of school time to deal with the fallout from incidents. Whilst we are duty bound to pass on any offensive material that is shared with us, our role is not to police the use of Social Media amongst pupils outside school.
The school asserts the following guidance:
WhatsApp’s age has recently been upgraded to 16.
Pupils should NOT be adding contacts and creating groups for the purposes of sharing offensive posts with pupils.
Passing on offensive material is considered legally to be on a par with initiating it.
Making multiple groups/ multiple Admins is inadvisable at best.
Should parents feel that their child is emotionally responsible enough to use apps such as WhatsApp despite being considerably underage, we advise that you discuss this with your child and agree boundaries.
Please be assured that your child’s emotional well being is important to us and we are keen to work in partnership with parents on a range of E Safety concerns. With this in mind please follow this link for further guidance.
https://parentzone.org.uk/article/whatsapp
Thank you
Mr Davies