Unfortunately, there are those who use social networking sites in an inappropriate manner.
We encourage parents to support us with the education and well-being of students, and if at any time a parent feels that there is an issue regarding their child which they wish to address, an appointment should be made to discuss this with the most appropriate person/people in school. However, it is not appropriate to use social networking sites to openly criticise and make unsubstantiated, damaging comments about the school or any members of our staff or students.
Current laws such as the 1988 Malicious Communications Act, 1997 Protection from Harassment Act and 2003 Communications Act can be used to protect individuals from malicious and threatening posts made on the internet. The victims might also choose to bring civil actions for defamation or slander. Gosforth Federated Academies wish it to be known that all necessary action will be taken to deal with any material posted on such sites that is, in our opinion, distressing, alarming or harassing or in any way breaches the rights of the members of our school community.
We hope that you understand and appreciate our position on this matter and that you will support us by removing and/or reporting any comments of this nature that may come to your attention.
We understand that the overwhelming majority of you would never become involved in such activity and look forward to maintaining the strong positive relationships that we have with those within our school community.