11:00am Friday 19th February 2010
By Katy Islip
A SECONDARY school has moved to set the record straight following claims it created a fake Facebook profile to spy on pupils.
Youngsters at Greensward Academy, in Greensward Lane, Hockley, have been warning each other from becoming friends with a user called Amanda Bruton on the popular social networking website.
It had been claimed the profile was a fake and was being used by school staff to monitor and then reprimand pupils over school-related posts.
But this has been vehemently denied by the school.
Debbie Stokes, head of education, said: “The school is not monitoring anything pupils put on Facebook.
“We would not do anything like that. Why would we want to?”
She added Amanda Bruton was not a pupil at the school, and said she did not recognise the name.
Access to Facebook from school computers is blocked and pupils are taught about the dangers of revealing information to strangers online.
Mrs Stokes said the only time pupil activity on the site would be questioned was if a complaint of bullying was made.
She added: “If there’s an issue with bullying, we put pupils together to sort out the problem face to face.
“We teach children to have respect and responsibility when using anything online.”
Activity on the profile of Amanda Bruton, which states she is based in London, showed scores of people had recently made internet friends with her, including a number of Greensward pupils.
The Echo sent an e-mail to the profile of Amanda Bruton about the situation but we did not receive a reply.
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