Do I need parental consent to issue an email account to a pupil?

[muppet]

So today's question of the day is........

Do I need signed parental consent to issue email accounts to students below the age of 16........or can I just inform parents that we are going to issue them and give them the option to opt out on behalf of their children?

Finally....and most importantly........can anyone direct me to where it states whatever the answer is so that I can show the SLT.

Thanks in advance for anyone that can help.

[elsiegee40]

I can't say that I can give any statutory guidance because there isn't any that I am aware of. The short answer is that you do not need parent permission to issue an email address to an under 16. You don't even have to tell them.

 

Most schools will ask students (and their parents) to sign some sort of Acceptable Use agreement to reinforce the Discipline/Behaviour/Safeguarding messages of the establishment.

Edited December 4, 2014 by elsiegee40

[Michael]

E-mail is very much part of the learning process, towards the end of KS1 and throughout KS2. We've never seeked permission to create pupils an e-mail account. You could argue the same would apply to any other cloud service you subscribe to.

 

If you use the likes of Office 365, you can properly control who can e-mail pupil accounts through mail flow rules, putting the school in full control.

 

This is considerably better in my opinion, rather than some of the guidelines Becta used to publish and most Local Authorities adopt, by implementing incredibly complex username formats and password requirements. It takes the fun out of learning e-mail, when all that's required is to control the flow of e-mail to those pupil accounts. Office 365 does this out the box with the minimum of configuration/knowledge required.

[muppet]

We get the students to sign an AUP and we also get the parents to sign if the student is below the age of 16.

The reason for the question is because at a meeting I was asked what I would do if a parent didn't want their child to have an email account and where we stood legally if we issued email accounts without parental consent!?!

My view is that we get the student to sign an AUP, then issue the network login details and their email details. At the same time the parents should be informed of what we are doing. If they do not wish us to do so they need to let us know ASAP that they wish to opt their child/children out of the scheme.

I'd just like to get something in writing that I can use to cover myself should there be any repercussions.

[elsiegee40]

I am at a primary school. We don't issue email until they are in Year and then it does as part of a series of lessons on how to use it appropriately. being a primary school, the kids don't have the facility to contact anyone outside the school and accounts are monitored. Parents are told when this happens as part of the reinforcing the Safeguarding message. It's part of the curriculum at our school.

 

When they get to secondary, it starts becoming essential that they have one, though some schools do manage without. Given that 99.99% of the little darlings will have email privately before they leave primary school, I think your school should be looking at it as an opportunity to teach them how to use it safely and legally rather than worrying that a parent might say no.

[muppet]

@elsigee40 - we already teach them how to use it safely and legally, I even do my bit in class as a CEOP........but there doesn't seem to be any guidelines in place to state what best practice is and to protect us if/when someone has an issue with how we do things....and as it's been raised with me I'm slightly concerned that i'm where the fingers are all going to point!!

[localzuk]

I've not seen any such guidelines. Email is just a tool like any other in a school, and requires internal policies to guide it. We have internal only email here (on Frog), it doesn't connect up to the outside world, so they can't email anyone outside school and can't be emailed by anyone from outside either. We don't have a need to do anything more here either, as we can teach all the important stuff using this system, whilst also having complete control over it.

[elsiegee40]

@elsigee40 - we already teach them how to use it safely and legally, I even do my bit in class as a CEOP........but there doesn't seem to be any guidelines in place to state what best practice is and to protect us if/when someone has an issue with how we do things....and as it's been raised with me I'm slightly concerned that i'm where the fingers are all going to point!!

 

Why on earth should fingers point at you? Your role is to create the account and to monitor the filtering. If there's a problem you escalate to SLT. The decision to use a particular tool in the classroom, e.g. email, is an SLT one not yours. To be honest, the decision to give parents an opt-out is an SLT one too.

[muppet]

Yes and no! It is also part of my roll to advise SLT on things such as this.......and whilst I can and often do point out that there are no best practice guidelines for things or that I am unable to advise them on certain issues

I am also very aware that the brown stuff can run downhill very quickly!

[Oddbod]

Why should it? If you want cya, you say yes and get them to sign everything and make them aware of what they’re signing. If you say no, and state your reasons why, and they go ahead anyway… you record the outcome.

What you don't do… is say “I don't know

If there are no clearly defined policies out there, go and make some!

If they don't fit, state a revision date on the bottom and get SLT to review on that date.