Incident Description
Two female year four classmates were using Kinzoo messenger (a child-friendly messaging app designed for children where parents get an alert for new friend requests).
One girl instigated the other girl (who has a diagnosis of autism) to take a nude photograph.
The other girl took a nude photo of herself posing with her hands behind her head in an explicit position.
The girl who received the image then sent it to a male classmate.
He told his parents who contacted the police and informed school.
Guidance for Safeguarding Response
- School spoke with parents of both girls
- School spoke to all three children to reinforce key messages in relation to sending and receiving illegal images. They informed the police of their plans as they did not want to impede on any police investigation
- All of KS2 were spoken to around the safe use of technology and social media platforms reinforcing the message around consent and the illegal activity of using sending and receiving sexual images. The age of criminal responsibility was reiterated
- School had shared the importance of checking your child’s phone in a recent newsletter. They reiterated this by sending individual letters home, highlighting the concern, encouraging parents/carers to check their children’s messages even when using child friendly messaging apps.
- Information was recorded for all children involved (Category: Online safety outside of school)
- School used the Pol-ed session ‘What is peer pressure?’ with the whole of KS2 and additional 1:1 with the girl who sent the nude images
Agencies Involved in this Incident
The children were spoken to by police but the case was eventually closed with no further action and the police advised school to do targeted work around sharing of indecent images