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Child Safety and Web Publishing Policy - Details
Publishing text composed by the child:
On the positive side:
- Children get a tremendous 'buzz' in having their work published, even if it
is only through display on a class notice board. When they know it is displayed
on the school web site for the world to see, the buzz is obviously much
greater. This can give great incentive and purpose to reluctant writers.
- The children can become involved in recording the local history of the
school and surrounding area, creating a resource that will have an ongoing
value to the school.
- By expressing their lives as they experience them, pupils contribute an
Irish dimension to an emerging record of all the cultures of the world.
- Such material gives great pleasure to family members, past pupils, and
others around the world for whom this is an invaluable link with home.
On the negative:
- Although "stranger danger" represents a relatively minor threat
to children, it cannot be ignored. One of the devices used by predators is to
try to persuade the child that they know the child or his/her family. Such a
person may, for example, listen for a friend to call the child's name, and then
use that name when talking to the child. It is easy to imagine, then, how a
predator might use a knowledge of the names of the child's parents, siblings,
and pets, not to mention the address and route to school.
- Is the child exposing something of family life that the rest of the family
would prefer to keep private? A teacher may not know the context and interpret
a story as harmless, but it may prove to be very embarrassing to Auntie Maggie
in Philadelphia.
- Some parents will also have concerns about having Johnny's work displayed
next to Mary's where comparisons may be made. In some ways, there is no
material difference between this and displaying work in the school, but a web
site is a great deal more public than a board outside the classroom. Most
parents will be delighted that the child's work is considered worthy of
display, but again sensitivity must guide judgement.
Precautions:
- The central principle here must be privacy. The child's right to
privacy must be protected even where parents may not necessarily recognize the
dangers, as is often the case with the Internet. Not many teachers would feel
comfortable having their name, address, age, names of siblings and other
personal information listed on a web page! Yet such details are frequently
posted for children, who are infinitely more at risk. As mentioned before, one
option is to have some things available only on the school network, despite the
additional work this brings for the web-master.
- Most importantly, under no circumstances should personal details be shown
alongside a picture of an individual child. Even apparently innocuous items
such as "My favourite story is..." or "I like giraffes" may
be used by a predator to win a child's trust. There is an understandable
temptation to use this kind of material from the infant classes, especially, as
older children have a greater variety of work to display, but the dangers are
real and must be recognised.
- As with images, parents must have the ultimate sanction as to whether a
piece will appear. It would be generally be impractical to check with parents
every time a piece goes on the web site, so a level of trust between parents
and staff must be maintained. In the interests of such trust, teachers must
make themselves aware of dangers and have the sensitivity to consult parents in
any case where there is uncertainty.
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