A head teacher has labelled Facebook a ‘nightmare’ for children after encountering a raft of online comments aimed at pupils which were considered so ‘vile’ police were called in.
Bill Scriven, head of All Saints RC school in York, was forced to seek outside help after a Facebook page labelled ‘All Saints Secrets’ was set up anonymously to disseminate alleged secrets harboured by pupils.
In it were posted a series of ‘unpleasant’ and ‘offensive’ comments which eventually led to the page being taken down for breach of Facebook’s statement of rights and responsibilities, though not before it had generated 250 ‘likes’.
Scriven said: “Facebook is a real nightmare for schools and this incident is particularly unpleasant. We have a lot of concerned parents and pupils who do not recognise the school in this.
“We are dealing with it very robustly and have reported it to the police, but the situation is extremely frustrating.
“All schools are doing a lot of work to make sure students use IT responsibly and to make sure they are aware of the risks and we will be stepping up our efforts in that area, but it’s the lack of our ability to close down such sites quickly that is so frustrating for schools."