Body cameras on trial in schools

[novastorm]

Body cameras on trial in English schools

 

Body cameras on trial in English schools - BBC Newsbeat

 

any one here using body cams at school?

[FN-GM]

The British seems to have an obsession with cameras and CCTV.

[SamanthaD]

Complete waste of time and money - if they're not on all the time then it won't capture the instant problems, kids will see it being switched on and behaviour will change instantly.

 

Also if it's not hardwired in like CCTV, teachers will probably forget to charge it, or the storage will fill up... And whose fault will it be?

 

Better CCTV coverage that is controlled and always on is a more worthwhile investment IMO.

[Fazza]

The British seems to have an obsession with cameras and CCTV.

 

The Americans seem to have an obsession with guns!

 

US gun laws: Colorado to arm teachers in classrooms - BBC News

 

CCTV or GUNS in the classroom - I know which I'd prefer!

[novastorm]

kids will see it being switched on and behavior will change instantly.

 

but then that would be great if it helps to change students behavior for the better.

[SamanthaD]

but then that would be great if it helps to change students behavior for the better.

Then that's effectively turning the system into a threat, rather than a deterrent?

[dhicks]

any one here using body cams at school?

 

No, but for some schools and in some situations I can see how they might be very useful. Not just for the examples in the article, with people recording disruptive / violent behaviour, but it could hep change the way some teacher / pupil interactions currently happen. For instance, standard child protection policy states that you shouldn't be alone in a classroom with a child, sometimes making it difficult to have a properly private conversation with a child if they are upset about something. A bodycam could perhaps better provide the child protection aspect, recording everything that goes on to a secure and private datastore.

[mikes]

seems a bit OTT for me. I'd rather take the Glock, at least you could go plinking with it

[ITGuyNW]

Thought I'd bring this thread back to life and see if the opinions above have changed.

 

We've had a few events and accusations not caught on CCTV. Being a school spread over 7 or 8 buildings, unfortunately there are some areas not as good as others for CCTV coverage. It's already been mentioned , jokingly, in passing about teachers at break having body cams, to protect themselves and students. A lot of shops I go into now have staff wearing them.

 

Has anyone dared to move forward with this?

[mikes]

We haven't investigated body cams but I'm sure I've read about it either in the news or on here very recently - back in 2017 I didn't touch our CCTV system but now I'm doing it daily so usage has exploded - we have the same accusations issues, luckily our school is blanketed with cameras now. It doesn't improve behaviour however, the pupils who will be naughty will be openly naughty in front of the cameras - e.g. vape in front of them then when walking out do a nice middle finger to the camera as a show of contempt. But for accusations it works well.

If schools ended up needing body cams honestly it would be another push to just get out of education as I don't need this close a seat of watching our society decay in front of me

[paulkerton]

Well with totally responsible articles like this around, I think body warm cams might become an inevitable part of the school day

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/mar/02/i-hate-my-school-why-are-more-british-teenagers-plotting-shooting-attacks

[synaesthesia]

I can see it happening more widely. From policy and privacy perspectives, it raises some interesting questions that if anything make it *less* risky. For example, there's a good argument to say that having CCTV covering and live monitoring an area that is a) publicly accessible on your property or b) already visible, such as your reception area is less intrusive. Body cams would fall very much under this and knocks the points down a bit from the intrusiveness scale. However at the same time, generally speaking bodycams are a bit closer to video doorbells in function, complete with audio which you need to ensure is fully covered in an extensive DPIA and detailed clearly in policy. I don't think I'd have any trouble writing one up for this case, even though it does irk me somewhat that bodycams would have to be necessary in the first place. Also plenty you can do to make it less risky as far as personal data is concerned - the majority will work like your dashcam, on a rolling loop and very little actual retention unless the button is pressed to save whatever happened in the last few minutes. Perhaps you could set them up so they only record when specifically activated.

Again, I don't like the idea that we might need such tech just like extensive CCTV, however these days we have to protect ourselves, our colleagues, our pupils and our property. People can moan about it as much as they like, but they're not the ones on the receiving end of some of what we put up with on a daily basis.

[Norphy]

When you see workers at Tesco wear body cams, I kind of feel they're going to be inevitable in schools as well. Behaviour and discipline seem to be getting worse, it's probably a matter of time.

[MatthewL]

Wasn't there a school in NY with too many cameras at one point, think it topped 700, did make the news.

[synaesthesia]

Until the states sorts out their gun laws (i.e. it implodes on itself and they start again from roughly the bronze age) they'll never have enough cameras.

[steve]

Complete waste of time and money - if they're not on all the time then it won't capture the instant problems, kids will see it being switched on and behaviour will change instantly.

 

Also if it's not hardwired in like CCTV, teachers will probably forget to charge it, or the storage will fill up... And whose fault will it be?

 

Better CCTV coverage that is controlled and always on is a more worthwhile investment IMO.

 

I've recently upgrade our universities Body Worn Video System to Motorola equipment / software and you can have a pre and post record buffer, so when the button is pressed it stores the previous 2 mins of footage.

 

When docked they automatically upload any captured footage to a central server and remove the local copy. Ours are used well by our campus patrol staff.

 

But I agree there would need to be a significant management overhead if used by teachers who often have other things on their mind. Would be more cost effective to have better fixed CCTV and body worn cameras only used in specific circumstances such isolation units and high risk situations.

[Fazza]

Would be more cost effective to have better fixed CCTV and body worn cameras only used in specific circumstances such isolation units and high risk situations.

 

In my experience, Teachers dont like CCTV in teaching rooms as it means it might be used against them in a disciplinary hearing whereas wearing a body camera they are in control of whether they press that button or not that stores the video.

 

A secondary school we helped out last year spend over £100,000 on a CCTV system so unless your body cameras come close to that then I'd say it's more cost effective to have some CCTV in the student communual areas and body cameras elsewhere.

[SamanthaD]

I've recently upgrade our universities Body Worn Video System to Motorola equipment / software and you can have a pre and post record buffer, so when the button is pressed it stores the previous 2 mins of footage.

When docked they automatically upload any captured footage to a central server and remove the local copy. Ours are used well by our campus patrol staff.

But I agree there would need to be a significant management overhead if used by teachers who often have other things on their mind. Would be more cost effective to have better fixed CCTV and body worn cameras only used in specific circumstances such isolation units and high risk situations.

Only problem I can see is then the footage is being controlled by the wearer. What if the bodycam wearer does something towards someone else - they complain and ask for the footage to be checked, except there is no footage because the wearer didn't press a button that would incriminate them? Does this then stop being true CCTV, instead becoming a censored, private device of unknown reliability? Also the 2 minute buffer could be misused (lets face it, we've all seen edited footage of incidents where the context of a video is distorted due to the full footage not being available.

[Oaktech]

This has been discussed very seriously at one of my schools (primary) and the upshot continues to be that it still isn't justified within the school building itself or the normal school day, however we are actively looking for a suitable product for SLT staff to wear when they are outside at the begining and end of school.

[Ditto]

I did be interested to hear what a schools view is where a parent deems, for safety and well being reasons, their pupils will wear a bodycam. I understand the thought process from a schools perspective, but I think it's a very slippery slope and fraught with future issues, particularly with vexatious parents.

[Rob_D]

I did be interested to hear what a schools view is where a parent deems, for safety and well being reasons, their pupils will wear a bodycam. I understand the thought process from a schools perspective, but I think it's a very slippery slope and fraught with future issues, particularly with vexatious parents.

 

Parents can do whatever they want in public, but while the kids are on school grounds they are forbidden from using personal recording devices under the school's GDPR policy. It's no different from schools banning the use of phones.

 

That said, I do agree it's a slippery slope and schools need to be very careful what they do here. There is a need to protect staff, but are bodycams the answer or are they just going to cause more problems down the line?

[synaesthesia]

I'd be an advocate for them in behavioural hubs in schools and AP units.

[mikes]

It was on the news this morning about teachers + headteachers (this story was mainly a focus on primaries) being subject to verbal abuse and even physical violence by parents of all things - not sure if this was a BBC Wales story as it was in the Rhondda - but perhaps we will be seeing body cams sooner than we know. Agree about how will they manage them - will teachers agree to wear them? will all the info be stored on SD card if so how do you control all that data? And I also hear about teachers maybe not wanting CCTV in their rooms like you said due to politics - it might be used against them if they make a minor mistake - same reason airliners only have voice recorders not CCTV - the airline unions apparently didn't want CCTV as it can be used for politics.

[paulkerton]

kids will see it being switched on and behaviour will change instantly.

Remember, we're working in a sector where a lot of people think technical solutions are the answer to classroom management problems.

Things like treating using a computer as a privilege rather than a requirement, or how some schools will want a stop on student email or document sharing being highly limited/stopped despite never thinking of taking away pen and paper from every single child because there are a couple that like to pass notes.

 

Some people would absolutely welcome the cameras themselves being a deterrent and a way to temper behavioural issues in class before they happen.

Edited March 4, 2025 by paulkerton

[mikes]

Yeah the old "technological solution to a societal problem"