First year asked to create an email account.

dingding

Hi all,

My niece was asking me how to set up an email account.

She said her Irish teacher told them to create one and send some homework to the teacher.

I would have controlled the access of her devices as her parents would not be IT competent.

I would be concerned with students that age having an email account.

Am I over reacting

meep

As a parent, I think that's about the right age to get set up with email. It's such a basic tool these days, children should be comfortable with it.

If you're concerned, make sure your niece is aware that you have full access to her account and, if paranoid, set it up to auto-cc you on all incoming and outgoing messages.

Gmail is pretty effective at blocking spam and nasties. I'd suggest you advise your niece to pick a sensible e-mail address. It will grow with her and partygirl18@gmail.com won't look great on CVs and the like!

Also, schools do tend to run internet safety sessions for both students and parets. You could check with the school to see if there's one coming up for first years, particularly in light of this requirement. Providing education and guidance alomng with any digital account is crucial.

Our mantra to our kids is 'never type anythng online that you wouldn't say to the person in real life with a parent or teacher in the room'

ScouseMouse

Definitely.
OK, I am an adult, but online learning is now huge. I need email for college and most of my resources are online. My wife is doing a degree and her work and contacts are online as well.

Its getting more and more normal now. Even my 14 year old has work online to her school.

Ghekko

My kids were emailing homework in primary school. Secondary school uses it more.

Sleeper12

dingding wrote:

I would be concerned with students that age having an email account.

I set up email accounts for my children in 1999. They were 7 and 4 at the time. You can put parent controls on them. Parents can control the password so they can log into the account and see any emails in or out.

It's the 21st century. My children, now adults have never sent a letter & most likely never will. Children born in 10 years may never see cash money. They will learn about it in the history books on their laptops. Parents hiding technology from their children is akin to parents hiding the facts of life from their children. That's not to say that they should have Facebook accounts or unlimited or unmonitored access to the Internet.

It sounds like a brilliant idea the teacher has come up with imo.

happywithlife

A lot of schools issue school emails now when students enrol. It may not be done on her school but I wouldn't see an issue with it.

splinter65

dingding wrote: »

Hi all,

My niece was asking me how to set up an email account.

She said her Irish teacher told them to create one and send some homework to the teacher.

I would have controlled the access of her devices as her parents would not be IT competent.

I would be concerned with students that age having an email account.

Am I over reacting

Yes hugely over reacting.

TheDriver

Unfortunately parents think this but it's same as not letting child on Facebook, not learn about contraception etc. They're all life skills that need parental guidance and support.

evolving_doors

In an ideal world there should be a school policy on email etc. To my mind it would be the same as phoning a student 'out of hours' to talk to a pupil. Myself, I'd set work in school to be emailed and then the students can reply that evening or whenever. I wouldn't feel comfortable engaging in dialogue outside of school time (especially with certain vulnerable students, but that's just me).

The school should be able to setup school email addresses with google and then have administrator rights to read any email, just to keep things in check, although it can be a bit of a chore with students 'forgetting' Passwords all the time. Going by non-school emails wouldn't be my cup of tea, but maybe I'm just overcautious.

I asked first years today if they still use Facebook and they laughed at me "only my granny uses facebook now". It's all snapchat these days apparently.

dingding

Thanks for this.

Talked my Niece to setting up a Gmail account. Thanks for all the advice and she is happy she has her homework sent off

linguist

I'll be honest and say that I would be a little concerned about this - and more now than I would have been even a couple of years ago. Issues around child protection but also data protection (GDPR) mean that teachers really have to be much more careful than ever before in this regard.

As happywithlife has said, many schools now set pupils up with email accounts. This is the right way to go since email communication goes between school email addresses - staff and students.

With senior cycle students, I have secured the agreement of management to copy emails to their personal email addresses should the students wish this, however the email always goes to their school email address also. All emails are sent from my school email address.

With junior cycle students, I only ever correspond via their school email addresses. They know this and can access their school email addresses from home. I don't use emails for homework. I coach certain extracurricular activities that require work in progress to be circulated etc.

If students didn't have school email addresses, I would write to parents seeking consent and clearly explaining why I wished to correspond with the child. I would also copy emails to a parent's email address. Has this happened?

Teachers should not use their own personal email addresses in corresponding with students. It is vital that a record of all emails is on the school server.

Frankly, the parents not being IT competent is pretty pathetic in this day and age. They need to cop themselves on. They have the primary responsibility for keeping their child safe and that excuse won't wash the day something goes wrong.

TheDriver

I don't know if there is an issue with the students using their own address but importantly the teacher is using a school address that's accessible by school authorities if needs be. Parental inclusion or awareness is also vital. Students having school accounts can open the minefield about what exactly they're using it for.

dingding

OP Here,

The last couple of posts outline the sort of concerns that I would have had, even though it is my Niece.

Also once the child has an email address, and other students become aware of the email address, either through the teacher or them telling each other has the potential to become problematic.

TheDriver

And hence parental oversight comes into it. Same as all other things a teenager does,they need help, guidance and supporr

Sleeper12

dingding wrote:

Also once the child has an email address, and other students become aware of the email address, either through the teacher or them telling each other has the potential to become problematic.

Why would you see it as problematic?

Would it be much different to another student having the 14 year old phone number?

I would imagine that the vast majority of 14 year olds already have an email address. You need one to download any apps on an apple or android device. I'm pretty sure that you needed one to be able to Dock an I pod to I tunes ten years ago.

It would be far better if parents set up email addresses for their children. This way they have control of content and passwords

SligoBrewer

dingding wrote: »

OP Here,

The last couple of posts outline the sort of concerns that I would have had, even though it is my Niece.

Also once the child has an email address, and other students become aware of the email address, either through the teacher or them telling each other has the potential to become problematic.

If you're that concerned, voice them to the school and ask for a school issued e-mail address.

meep

Surely the proper solution here is some kind of school portal that teachers and students log on to and all correspondence is conducted there in a transparent fashion?

That would be doing it right, I suppose. Instead, we get the a piecemeal approach with some 'progressive' schools/teachers/parents and some not so progressive with a blend of best-foot-forward but often without the thought, infrastructure, policies and oversight to support the endeavour.

evolving_doors

If it is to be done correctly it's either
A. Going to cost money
B. depend on a teacher to voluntarily administrate it... forever.