Best Practice

The parents who misuse and abuse social media

Parental engagement Whole-school issues
The best way to deal with inappropriate social media use by parents is to proactively set expectations, and to be clear on how you will respond to incidents of abuse or misuse. Kaley Foran offers her advice, including on what you can do if an issue does arise

You can use this to set clear guidelines and expectations on how parents should use social media (or other communications forums) when they communicate with or about your school.

Make sure your agreement covers parents’ use of:

You cannot require parents to sign an acceptable use agreement, but using one can help you to explain what kinds of behaviour you will not tolerate.

Some schools do this as well as, or instead of, having an acceptable use agreement. Parent codes of conduct are not legally binding, but you can use one to set out things like:

Parents may turn to social media if they do not know how to raise a complaint or handle an incident in the right way. Make sure parents know about your policies and procedures on things like complaints and behaviour. To do this:

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