p2pnet - rss feed: UK school Smiley Faces over-kill
p2pnet news | Freedom:- A primary school in Essex, England, went too far when it disguised pupils with smilies in their online newsletter, say reports.
“Cann Hall Primary School in Clacton-on-Sea took the decision after deciding parents would not want their children’s faces on the internet,” says the East Anglian Daily Times.
Head teacher Clare Reece said the move was to protect children and, “Most parents are aware of the dangers of children surfing the net un-supervised,” says the school site, going on >>>
At Cann Hall School we strongly recommend parental supervision, whilst we guarantee the content of our site is child friendly we have supplied links to other learning resources and we cannot guarantee content will not change, or where these sites link to.
The internet is a great learning tool, and a fun place for children to explore if used wisely. Help us to protect children on the web!
Please Note: In order to protect our children, we have made the decision not to include any photos of our pupils on this website.
EADT has John Midgley, co-founder of the Campaign Against Political Correctness, saying, “The world’s gone mad. This is over the top safety nonsense.
“Why on earth shouldn’t the school and children be proud to display their medals and successes properly.”
Chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, Nick Seaton, said, “It seems like another example where political correctness is overcoming good sense,” says the Telegraph, continuing >>>
Sean Witmore, 40, a postman with a six-year-old son Jack at the school said: “It seems a bit over the top. It’s PC gone a bit too far. But at the same time you can’t be too careful. I understand the point of view but it’s still strange.”
Michaela Day, 35, mother of eight-year-old Connor, said: “If they are covering the children’s faces what is the point of using the photographs?”
Reece said staff started blurring the faces of children four years ago but a technical ‘blip’ had lead them to start obscuring them with cartoon faces instead, says the EADT.
“There have been a number of problems with images not being blurred out (for the website). The funny faces are just a temporary measure while we sort out the blip. They are not permanent.”
[NOTE - p2pnet is running a special reader’s survey. It only takes a minute - literally. Please click here. Cheers! And thanks … Jon]
Also See:
East Anglian Daily Times - Pupils’ faces blurred on school website, March 6, 2008
Telegraph - PC overkill for school’s internet newsletter, March 6, 2008
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy!
Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile - http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php
Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details. Download here.
March 6th, 2008 at 10:37 am
maybe those children are all very ugly since they stayed in england where only an army of cctv cameras took their pictures everywhere
Emma for example isn’t so ugly to have her face covered in the stories her daddy posts.
Her daddy on the other hand….
just kidding Jon giving your age and your history you look “interesting”