World gone mad or totally justified ? North East Photography ban on school plays

dancook said:
Once the school lets parents take photos, they can't control what happens after that - regardless of how nicely they ask. Some people will ignore them and do as they please.

My parents have fostered many children, they have been taken away from their biological parents for good reason.
Photos of children with protective orders cannot be allowed to find their way online for public viewing. (edit. Well if it can be helped at least, street photography not included :D )

In light of this, a blanket ban on photography in schools seems reasonable to me.

But then I am not a parent and think it less than likely I will decide to have children (but never say never)
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are these children otherwise invisible and can only be seen on a photogrpah?
 
KIPAX said:
are these children otherwise invisible and can only be seen on a photogrpah?
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They are usually moved to care away from their biological parents, so are not likely to bump into them.

The internet makes the world a small place, much easier to find people.


The school has no choice but to take responsibility for the safety of the children whilst they are there.
I imagine (from their point of view) to allow photography probably doesn't seem worth the risk.
 
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The schools don't seem to have any problem gouging you for DVDs of plays, concerts or putting school photos in the paper. I generally just take the pictures of my kid and use them as I see fit. Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.
 
The headteacher at our school play asked for no photos ... for some ridiculous fudged "stranger danger" reason ... they are just jumping on the "FEAR EVERYONE" bandwagon.
The play was rubbish so no loss that day ...

This fear & hate message is still being plugged by the telly and the government, so the thing's not going away for the foreseeable future.

At least we still have national free healthcare, eh?
 
A major point which has been picked up on here is Double Standards.

A school should not be employing a photographer and then disallowing photography that's just pure stupidity and greed.
Some if not all of these schools will have had photos published with children on, on their own websites in newspapers etc and I know that they do not have written permission in all cases as we have never been asked and ours have appeared before, no doubt this is not uncommon.
The reason given across schools is not consistent either ranging from stranger danger , to protection of children at risk in the school to protecting a photographer who has an agreement with the school.

I like others want the ability to record these happy moments in my child's life without adhering to a set of inconsistent made up rules based on the latest media scare coverage.

On the other hand it seems the real problem is Social Media and that's where its getting complex. In the old days photos went in albums and friends saw them and that was it - now when you post them in some cases in public everyone has access.

As the OP I think i can clearly see now both sides of this debate and its difficult to stand on either side, its nice to hear the views though and it helps to have a clearer view of why it might be a problem.
 
Let me give you an example of the problem. When I was a school governor we had a child (she was 10-11 years old) moved to the school, the reason she had been moved to the school was because her parents had already tried twice to abduct her for an arranged marriage. We where in a different education area from where the child originally came from. Now this was before facebook and twitter etc. but we new they had use the extended family to look through papers, the web etc to try and find this girl. So no it is just media hysteria, there are sound reasons (in some cases) for it. If schools release photos then they have generally been vetted. Hence my comment earlier about my daughter getting skillful at taking photographs that are inclusive but don't necessarily show everyones face (or other identifying marks)
 
donut said:
well maybe they should wrap them in cotton wool and put them in the cupboard under the stairs until they get to their early twentys ( just in case some perv with a camera sees them out in the street )
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Really??
If you want to put pics up of your kids that's fine and YOUR choice. I do it and that's MY choice so if parents don't want to have photos put up that's THEIR choice. Wrapping them in cotton wool is nothing to do with it. Its their choice and it should be respected.

Also, and I will say it again, if the school have asked that these photos are not put up then that to should be respected. You decide to go to the event, you should except the rules. (You as in everyone)
Some people are hard work ;)
 
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Im really looking forward to taking pics of things like this with my little nipper. A far as im concerned, I wouldnt be there to take photos of other peoples kids anyway, so would find ways of isolating my Daughter in the shots.

I totally understand the situation schools are in with kids on protection orders. I had two primary school friends that just disappeared during the summer holidays one year and no-one would say what had happened to them. 30 years later, I was contacted by one of the brothers via facebook who told me what had gone on. They had a VERY abusive/violent father.

Ive also had also had a job in the past where I was shooting the festivities at school nativity play for the local commuity magazine, and was told what child couldnt be included in the shots for a similar reason.

Da rules is da rules.
 
Nikon_Nick said:
Ive also had also had a job in the past where I was shooting the festivities at school nativity play for the local commuity magazine, and was told what child couldnt be included in the shots for a similar reason. .
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And that is absolutely fine :)
No problem at all.

But playing Devils advocate, they may or may not be an at risk child in the play,
so because of this, the rest of the parents can't take pictures of their kids.
The solution as I see it, exclude the that child from the play,
their human rights are impacting on say 40 other kids / parents.

OR give that child a part in the play where their face is covered by a mask or hoodie or "donkey costume" or something.

But still, as I and others suggested, its OK for the school to sell the video.
 
Cobra said:
And that is absolutely fine :)
No problem at all.

But playing Devils advocate, they may or may not be an at risk child in the play,
so because of this, the rest of the parents can't take pictures of their kids.
The solution as I see it, exclude the that child from the play,
their human rights are impacting on say 40 other kids / parents.

OR give that child a part in the play where their face is covered by a mask or hoodie or "donkey costume" or something.

But still, as I and others suggested, its OK for the school to sell the video.
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Because when your child starts school a forum has to be filled in for media giving permission. I think phiotos for the papers is an option. Maybe they need an internet option.

The school my boy goes to doesn't stop people taking photos, they just don't want your photos with other kids put online without said kids parents permission. Doesn't stop you taking them for your personal use so I don't see how that's effecting anyone's human rights.

Schools that don't allow it at all are probably because they got complaints that little johny had his photo all over facebook by another parent, so the school banned it completely. And that's what will happen if peeps don't stick to the rules on this.

I've done some photographs of an event the playschool did, a sponsored dip in the sea. I didn't put any of them on facebook until I'd got permission from the pg manager, who got permission from parents of any kids in them.
 
Cobra said:
And that is absolutely fine :)
No problem at all.

But playing Devils advocate, they may or may not be an at risk child in the play,
so because of this, the rest of the parents can't take pictures of their kids.
The solution as I see it, exclude the that child from the play,
their human rights are impacting on say 40 other kids / parents.

OR give that child a part in the play where their face is covered by a mask or hoodie or "donkey costume" or something.

But still, as I and others suggested, its OK for the school to sell the video.
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No, they may not be an at risk child necessarily. It may just be the case that the parents of that child just dont want picturs of them circulating on t'internet. The actual reason for that may turn out to be completely trivial to the rest of us, but the school has to be seen to be respecting the wishes of the parents.

Its a tricky situation, where a lot of peoples choices/feelings etc have to be taken into account, so its a lot less hassle for the schools to just go with the easy option I guess.

It does seem like a bit of a money grab with the video, I agree. BUT, if when it comes to the point of my nippers first nativity play there happens to be an absolute ban/zero tollerance on cameras, i would happily buy the video so that I did have a memento of the occasion.
 
Raptor Mike said:
I've done some photographs of an event the playschool did, a sponsored dip in the sea. I didn't put any of them on facebook until I'd got permission from the pg manager, who got permission from parents of any kids in them.
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Again, absolutely fine no problem with that.

Nikon_Nick said:
It does seem like a bit of a money grab with the video, I agree. BUT, if when it comes to the point of my nippers first nativity play there happens to be an absolute ban/zero tollerance on cameras, i would happily buy the video so that I did have a memento of the occasion.
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I don't blame you in the slightest either, and neither would the school ;)

It kinda reinforces the point I made earlier, though.
Being a governor some 20 years ago, the same rules were in place for the same reason
(Anonymity) there was no such thing as social media,
for the pictures to get plastered all over.

And the chances of a parent trying to sell the images to a national or even local paper
would be pretty much unheard of ;)
 
Cobra said:
Again, absolutely fine no problem with that.


I don't blame you in the slightest either, and neither would the school ;)

It kinda reinforces the point I made earlier, though.
Being a governor some 20 years ago, the same rules were in place for the same reason
(Anonymity) there was no such thing as social media,
for the pictures to get plastered all over.

And the chances of a parent trying to sell the images to a national or even local paper
would be pretty much unheard of ;)
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And the only pohotgrapher there was under a black sheet and used gunpowder for flash :p
 
Nikon_Nick said:
It may just be the case that the parents of that child just dont want picturs of them circulating on t'internet. The actual reason for that may turn out to be completely trivial to the rest of us, but the school has to be seen to be respecting the wishes of the parents.
.
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If a child is subject to a protection order (and I would guess this may not amount to more than one or two children in an average sized school) then the safest course of action is to absent that child from the locations where photography is taking place. Or as Cobra said, a role in disguise is an excellent idea.

As for parents simply not wanting pictures of their children on Facebook, we've discussed the paranoia/irrational side of that in other threads and once again expecting the school to uphold their wishes at everyone else's expense is poor form. Again, I would say those parents need to remove the child from the activity in question rather than expecting the school and everyone in it to bow down to them. So many times I've seen parents like this with pictures of their kids and their friends' kids slapped all over their own social networking pages, but coming down hard on anyone else who has taken a snap in which their child might appear.

I find it very unfair that all of the other parents are effectively being penalised because of this.
 
Lindsay you are way off the mark, when I was a governor, we never had less than 15 with CPA's. By there very nature you are unlikely to know all those who are in any given school and the problem of just taking those kids out of plays etc just reinforces the fact they are different. What schools try to be is inclusive and if that means you can't take photographs then to me that's fine. It just means you can spend your time actually enjoying the event not seeing it through a lens.
 
Raptor Mike said:
And the only pohotgrapher there was under a black sheet and used gunpowder for flash :p
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Finally you've managed to post without banging on about RULES.
 
munch said:
Lindsay you are way off the mark, when I was a governor, we never had less than 15 with CPA's. .
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As Lindsey said pretty much what I did, I'll also jump back in.
IIRC there were 3 maybe 4 in the terms that I did as a governor,
it maybe a sad fact that those numbers have dramatically increased,
but they were never in the same class.

I see no problem with letting them wear the donkey suit or what ever, they are not being excluded.
But then again not everyone in any given class were included in the "play" anyway.
Some never wanted too, and some were quite frankly crap, and "we" just knew that the whole
thing would deteriorate end up as a shambles.

So people do get excluded from plays, for many reasons,
well they certainly did in my time anyway.
 
munch said:
Lindsay you are way off the mark, when I was a governor, we never had less than 15 with CPA's. By there very nature you are unlikely to know all those who are in any given school and the problem of just taking those kids out of plays etc just reinforces the fact they are different. What schools try to be is inclusive and if that means you can't take photographs then to me that's fine. It just means you can spend your time actually enjoying the event not seeing it through a lens.
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I had no idea there could be that many children with protection orders - that's awful. I can understand how that might be logistically difficult to manage at times. That said, from a protection point of view I can't help wondering if it's safest if they were not photographed at all. However my comment about paranoid parents expecting the school to introduce new rules to suit them still stands.

I've heard of schools having a no photography policy, or no Facebook policy published pictures policy, yet the school publishes pictures on their own website or blog, or even their own Facebook page. Quite often there seems to be a double standard and I guess that must wind up a lot of parents.
 
Lindsay D said:
I've heard of schools having a no photography policy, or no Facebook policy published pictures policy, yet the school publishes pictures on their own website or blog, or even their own Facebook page. Quite often there seems to be a double standard and I guess that must wind up a lot of parents.
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And that has been pretty much my point all along too :)
 
The difference being you as a parent may not know if the kid next to your child is subject to a CPA where as when the school puts up photographs it does. As I have already said my daughter is getting quite adapt at taking photographs that don't actually identify kids with CPA's
 
It sounds like using hyperbolic examples to enforce rules on everyone else. I only noticed the nursery being concerned about these social media photograph rules when the council bigwigs were in attendance at my son's sports day. I still took the shots anyway as did others and the next week every kid was on the front of the local newspaper in a group photo anyway.
 
munch said:
The difference being you as a parent may not know if the kid next to your child is subject to a CPA where as when the school puts up photographs it does.
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But as a few of us have been saying, there is also ways that the child can take part without showing its face.
And not letting the minority rule, and the proud parents can actually take pictures / video's of their sons and daughters.

munch said:
As I have already said my daughter is getting quite adapt at taking photographs that don't actually identify kids with CPA's
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And that is excellent. :thumbs:
( and certainly no sarcasm intended or inferred whatsoever :) )

Raptor Mike said:
;)
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You are slipping Mike. Quite frankly I'm disappointed :p

:D
 
munch said:
The difference being you as a parent may not know if the kid next to your child is subject to a CPA where as when the school puts up photographs it does. As I have already said my daughter is getting quite adapt at taking photographs that don't actually identify kids with CPA's
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I find that quite concerning - you seem to be saying that the children know which of their classmates are subject to CPOs? it was my understanding that child protection measures were often about secrecy so the child's exact location would not become known in a way which might prejudice their safety. Given how children talk about things, and will pass on information to friends and relatives or any adult who questions them, the location of a protected child could become known.
 
Raptor Mike said:
I could've put something else but I didn't want to break forum RULES!!! :cautious::whistle:
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PMSL Go for it, I've not banned anyone in a long time :p
(Well spammers excluded of course ;) )
 
Lindsay D said:
I find that quite concerning - you seem to be saying that the children know which of their classmates are subject to CPOs? it was my understanding that child protection measures were often about secrecy so the child's exact location would not become known in a way which might prejudice their safety. Given how children talk about things, and will pass on information to friends and relatives or any adult who questions them, the location of a protected child could become known.
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The problem isnt usually with it becoming known locally - theres various scenarios but one we've seen more than once down here is mother and child fleeing an abusive partner relocate to the area. In that situation it doesnt matter if the locals know (in fact its probably good so they can flag any suspicious characters hanging about) but it does matter that the childs photo isnt put on facebook , or worse news websites where the Ex might see it and learn from afar where they went.

With regard to school events with us I usually shoot regardless of who's in shot but just select the shots that don't show the child in question when i'm picking the ones to go on blog or website....that way the mother can have shots of her child but we don't spread them further , as theres no reason why they should be denied either participation in an event or indeed the snaps of them growing up just because father is an abusive asshole who wants his arm bending the wrong way

So I can kind of see why a school might ban parents taking shots and yet make shots available via an official photographer
 
Wow, that's crazy! I work in a primary school myself and we have a twitter account where we post images of the kids on trips, in classes, getting awards etc. Of course you need parents permission to post images of their child on social media but 99.9% of parents are happy to see a pic of their child online so they can retweet it, screen shot it etc. We recently had a whole school play from year 1 up to year 6. I took a load of behind the scenes images and made a slideshow to music and posted in on our website for parents to enjoy. As a photographer I'm so glad my school isn't in the camp as some others!
 
Sometimes the pupils do know. Kids being kids they often say more than they should. When I was a school governor not all the governors new who the CPA's were. They didn't need too. It is quite easy to get photographs that include a whole class but doesn't reveal CPA's example as most pupils work in groups you take the group shot that shows just the back of a CPA's head (along with 3 or 4 other kids). Going out doing some nature walks. Use the close up shot of worm etc in child's hand. You only see the hand. etc
 
I must just be lucky.. I cover 5 local areas and hundreds of schools and thousands of children.. over the last 7 yrs theres been the odd hickup ironed out in 5 minutes... and look what I have.. http://www.kipax.com/schools
 
KIPAX said:
No you don't.. unless the school stipulate that rule because your taking them on there premesis.. but as day to day rule your wrong..
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I thhink gareth may have meant "that the school needs parents permission etc ... not everyone everywhere" - he's still wrong though as its covered by the loco parentis form that every parent signs when their child is admitted
 
big soft moose said:
I thhink gareth may have meant "that the school needs parents permission etc ... not everyone everywhere" - he's still wrong though as its covered by the loco parentis form that every parent signs when their child is admitted
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it was the generalisation I pciked up on... am not good at reading between the lines :)
 
I'm not wrong! Maybe things are different in England and Wales but yes, parents sign the formentioned form when they admit their children into the school but having their children on social media, Estyn publication, school website etc all need parents permission and its opt in. It is not mandatory in the slightest.

Now I can't vouch for other schools, local authorities, countries etc but for my local authority this is what is practised.
 
cardiff_gareth said:
I'm not wrong! Maybe things are different in England and Wales but yes, parents sign the formentioned form when they admit their children into the school but having their children on social media, Estyn publication, school website etc all need parents permission and its opt in. It is not mandatory in the slightest.

Now I can't vouch for other schools, local authorities, countries etc but for my local authority this is what is practised.
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thats just a school rule though it isnt the law ... theres nothing in law to say as a general principle that someone can't post pictures of someoneles kids to facebook without their permission

in terms of school/education authority rules different places do it different ways , some have an opt in, some have an opt out, some cover it on admission to the school, some don't mention it at all.
 
Exactly, so I'm not wrong as this is what my local education authority practises!

Just to make sure there are no crossed wires, just picking up on something BSM above mentioned. This policy is for the school posting images online and not about what parents may do on Facebook etc with images they have taken.
 
cardiff_gareth said:
I'm not wrong! Maybe things are different in England and Wales but yes, parents sign the formentioned form when they admit their children into the school but having their children on social media, Estyn publication, school website etc all need parents permission and its opt in. It is not mandatory in the slightest.

Now I can't vouch for other schools, local authorities, countries etc but for my local authority this is what is practised.
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But you didnt mention that.,., you just made a sweeping statement that permission was needed.,.. your only adding the goialposts now.. we can only go by what you post.. not what you where thinking...
 
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