Re-vamped Website

The Haileybury Society has overhauled its website. It looks splendid.

I have spent a bit of time putting my profile up. I am not one who uses social networking sites otherwise, but I will have a look at this.

The advent of Facebook and the like has led to a whole new area of complexity for anyone who has professional contact with children. We are all faced with the need for CRB checks and we must act within child protection guidelines. That has included simple things like not sharing your mobile number with a child or private e-mails. It is normally felt wrong for an adult with responsibility over someone else's child to be friends with him or her on a social network, and it might be inappropriate anyway: a teacher might not want pupils to see holiday snaps or join in with the discussion on the site. the But once you are on the web of links means that everyone is connected. My feeling is that this can no longer be prevented, but we do need to learn how to manage it.

Even a couple of years ago the Haileybury server would not let computers other than those managed by the school online. Mobile internet is now so available that such restrictions are beside the point. At the Attlee lecture the other night the moment the young were dismissed hundreds of mobiles came out and facebook pages were being updated even as they filed out of Big School.

Parents at Haileybury were offered some advice last week at a meeting on internet safety. It is a fast changing world and we all need help keeping up. Even the young.

PS I am sorry for the lack of posts over the last few days. We won some concessions from the planning meeting last night on the Spurs ground (the meeting lasted till gone 11pm!) and preparation was intense.