School Gate blog: Here to
guide you through the maze of education
A year ago, Esther Guy, a busy working mum from Surrey, found herself wishing
that she was more involved with her children's lives. Guy's four-day-a-week
job in recruitment, which requires a daily round trip of 90 miles, left her
no time to chat at the school gates or arrange play dates for her daughters.
“I felt left out,” says Guy, who has seven-year-old twins and a four-year-old.
“I saw other mums chatting and it bothered me that I wasn't building those
relationships. I wished there was a website for parents that re-creates that
school-gate community, a site you can log on to in your own time and catch
up with other parents from the school. If I felt like this, I realised there
must be lots of other mums feeling the same way.” So why not start the
website herself? If it took off, she could even quit her recruitment job and
work from home (thus allowing her more time with her children and at the
real school gate, as opposed to the cyber one).
Then Guy's thought process moved on. “It started as something for the parents,
then I thought, ‘Let's do it for the kids as well'. There are loads of
primary-school-aged kids using Facebook - even though they're underage. I
thought my site could be a way of introducing children safely to the
grown-up world of social networking. If they're on a space their parents
use, they can be supervised. Children accept their real friends - their
classmates - as buddies and chat to them online.” After a year of planning,
Guy's website www.schooltogethernow.com
went live last month. Though the official launch is in January, it is
receiving more than 1,000 hits a day from across the country. Already 57 per
cent of registered members are children, mostly in the 7 to 11 age bracket.
While parents can exchange information about the latest Ofsted report,
children are “debating” (in the loosest possible sense) the merits of
football over rugby and High School Musical over Hannah Montana. “Disco” is
a typical thread. “I AM going to the disco, ARE YOU?” asks Holly, signing
off with 20 smiley faces and eight less smiley ones. No one really answers
the disco question, but Allison is moved to write: “Your smilies are cool.”
Most sites set a minimum age
But is this necessary and, more importantly, is this safe? Though many UK
adults have already been lost to social networking (more than half of us use
such sites now), it has been, until now, one of the few domains to remain
relatively child-free. Most social networking sites set a minimum age of
between 13 and 14. The hugely successful Club Penguin and Webkinz come
closest to offering a limited form of socialising to the very young but are
primarily “virtual reality” play sites rather than networking ones.
Schooltogethernow is very different. Here, children log on as themselves for
no other reason than to hook up and hang out.
Will Gardner, the deputy chief executive of Childnet International, which aims
to make the internet a safe and appealing place for children, is cautiously
positive. “The internet can be a wonderful place for children,” he says.
“Generally speaking, it's free. It's the biggest library in the world and
you can link up with people from other cultures, other countries.
“Children are becoming familiar with technology at younger ages and primary
school is the best time to start teaching them safety and influencing
behaviour online. Obviously, it needs to be controlled; it should be
something you do with your parents as a supervised activity. But I'd much
rather children chat to other children from their school environment on a
closely moderated site built with them in mind than go off and look at just
about anything.”
According to Gardner, a networking site for primary children should have
“pre-moderation”, where every post is read by a moderator before being
accepted. He recommends that it should be possible to chat only at certain
times; for example, three hours after school, to make this possible.
Children could also be locked into their own school forums (with passwords)
to ensure that they are talking to people they can identify.
On Schooltogethernow, this isn't the plan. The forum is open 24 hours, and
moderated by four people on a shift pattern. If a moderator sees a thread
she doesn't like, she can remove it (Guy recently removed one along the
lines of “Who do you LOVE and who do you HATE?” and sent an e-mail to the
poster).
Adults can become members
Anyone can join. Children with their own e-mail accounts can register without
parental permission. An adult with no children can also join, naming any
school they can think of (Guy explains that seeking verification from every
school is “too much of a burden to put on them”). Though there are “child”
and “adult” forums, they are open; anyone can cross between the two and
contribute to a thread.
Another feature that may concern some people is the site's “buddies” facility.
Members can use this to message one another “off-forum” (that is privately)
or view one another's personal profile, which may have contact details or
photos on, if a child has added them. All users are told that their
“buddies” should only be people that they know. But isn't this a huge
responsibility to leave with a child?
“You may say a child site is going to be a target for the wrong people, in the
way a playground is,” says Guy. “You don't keep children away from
playgrounds, but you do make sure they understand how to stay safe. I
decided not to limit buddy requests to their registered schools because
children have friends in other places. My children keep in contact with
their cousins this way; the important thing is that children only accept
names they recognise.”
Jayne Eddowes, 41, from Epsom, is mother to Callum, a keen user, and as yet,
she has no worries. “Callum is 12 and he has been desperate to use
Facebook,” she says. “I've not allowed it and this seems a good compromise.
He likes the games on the site and only talks to his buddies, mostly from
school, and two that have left to go to boarding school. He's learning a lot
about safety, and you have to learn some time. I registered the other day
and saw a couple of buddy requests I didn't recognise. Callum came along and
sternly told me not to accept them.”
Substituting cyberspeak for “real play”
Quite apart from the risk of predators is the question of substituting
cyberspeak for play, buddies for friends, at a time when children are still
forming their very selves. Elizabeth Hartley Brewer, a child development
expert and author of Talking to Tweenies (Hodder, £10.99), is worried. “The
ages 6, 7, 8 are the years children are finding out who they are. It's a
crucial time for exploring, fiddling around in your room, learning to be
comfortable with yourself. If you come home, log on and ‘network', that
won't happen.”
The business of “buddy collection” is another concern. “From 8 onwards,
children become competitive and start noticing how they rank,” says Hartley
Brewer. “Any struggling child - someone who's a less effective networker' -
is going to have this compounded. Children love to play at being old. To
give them the real thing is unnecessary. There are too many potential
nasties.”
Doug Fodeman, an IT teacher and co-founder of ChildrenOnline, which researches
the behaviour of children on the web, is adamant that it's the worst way for
children to socialise.
“Behind the anonymity of the screen, people say things they'd never say and do
things they'd never do,” he says. “One look at some of the humiliating,
brutal posts on YouTube will confirm that. Children are even more
susceptible. They're impulsive by nature. When you allow your child to
network online, you're saying, Off you go to a party, darling! There'll be
100 people in the room, 80 of whom you won't know! I'll see you in three
hours' time'. We're developing these sites so fast; where's the thoughtful
oversight?”
Schooltogethernow plans to reach potential networkers through schools, hoping
they will agree to send leaflets home with the children, or flag up the site
on their websites. The incentive for this is a classified ads section for
parents running local businesses, where 20 per cent of each fee is donated
to their local school.
One point no one is arguing with is that “real-life play” is preferable. Even
Guy agrees. “Of course, it's better for children to play face to face,” she
says. “But that's easier said than done.When I was a child, I'd go up the
road to see my friends and come home at tea. People don't want their kids
going out like that any more. It's the way of the world. We're a typical
family. I work late on Monday, my children have Brownies Tuesday, the twins
have swimming Wednesday and my four-year-old swims on Friday. That only
leaves Thursday for socialising, and the chances are their friends will be
off at ballet or drama or some other place. It's the way of the world.”
It's a phrase Guy uses frequently. And, in terms of social networking for
children - whether it will be enlightening or frightening, healthy or
hazardous - “way of the world” is one take few would be inclined to
challenge.
SAFETY NET
Internet safety ChildNet International, the non-profit group dedicated
to making the internet a safe place for children, says that parents should
supervise primary-school-aged children when they network online.
Smart behaviour Don't make a list of “do's” and “don'ts”. Instead,
parents should talk to their children about “smart behaviour” which
includes: never giving personal information - real names, addresses, phone
numbers or e-mails, to people you don't know; never arranging to meet
someone you've met online - unless you are with a parent and in a public
place.
Danger awareness Always tell a parent or trusted adult if something is
making you feel uncomfortable - and report online abuse to
www.thinkyouknow.co.uk
Don't forget It's important that your child understands that the buddy they
meet online may not be the person he or she is claiming to be and in fact
could be a different age and gender. For real-life examples - some quite
frightening - visit www.chatdanger.com
Want to know more? Visit the award-winning website www.kidssmart.org.uk
.
