A 15-year-old schoolgirl in England has been left humiliated by teachers and staff at her school after they showed a picture of her in a bikini during an ‘Online Safety’ assembly.
The teen was left in tears after the image from her Facebook page was used to portray the dangers of social networking sites at an assembly with 100 other pupils.
Teachers copied a variety of pictures of their pupils from the web, to show them how dangerous it is to use photos on social networking sites.
However, the girl’s furious mother is now blasting staff at Eggbuckland Community College in Plymouth, stating that her daughter is “really upset and hurt.”
“They took the photo from her Facebook profile – she put it on there last year. They used other photos of kids from the neck up, but for some reason they thought it was okay to use a picture of my daughter in her bikini,” the angry mother said.
“Why did they have to use an image like that to make their point? Then, they pointed her out in the assembly. I got a phone call from my daughter in the afternoon. When she told me about it, I went from nought to 60 – I was so upset at work I was sent home,” she continued.
“She’s really upset and hurt and this has knocked her confidence. She’s not the type of girl who likes attention like this. She’s a tom-boy, she doesn’t wear make-up and doesn’t even have her ears pierced. It’s not often you even get her in a bikini.
“I’ve now written to the school, Ofsted and the governors about it. The head-teacher has since phoned me and couldn’t be more apologetic. I don’t think she was aware it was going to happen.”
According to reports the school has stated that it has started a ‘formal investigation’ into the incident, while a spokesperson stated: “In a House assembly last week on the topic of ‘Online Safety’, students were shown a PowerPoint including a short video about the potential dangers of which they need to be aware.
“One of the images in the presentation was of an Eggbuckland student wearing shorts and a bikini top. The member of staff leading the assembly had accessed the picture simply by Googling the names of some of our students.
“She wanted to illustrate how freely available such images are, through the internet. We are really sorry for the way in which this important message was delivered. This was an error of judgement: the member of staff had not intended to cause any embarrassment.”
Pic SWNS.com
