<story><title>Call to shut down Bristol schools’ use of app to ‘monitor’ pupils and families</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/sep/21/calls-to-shut-down-bristol-schools-use-of-think-family-education-app-pupils-and-families</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>limbicsystem</author><text>Can we also have a discussion about the &amp;#x27;normal&amp;#x27; behaviour monitoring tools like Classcharts that are used by pretty much every school in the UK? These collect fine-grained data about behaviour throughout the day and link it both to the child but also the people that are near that child. It operates all across the child&amp;#x27;s school career. I&amp;#x27;ve tried to opt my kids out of this but it&amp;#x27;s really hard. At best I think they have stopped logging their behaviour but they are still in the data as a &amp;#x27;network&amp;#x27; influence. Classcharts used to boast about how their AI could do behavioural profiling but that looked too creepy so now they just talk about how teachers can use the data for seating planning. I&amp;#x27;m pretty sure that I could use the data to profile a child pretty effectively even after they have left school. God only knows what happens to the data or how it is secured - the school literally don&amp;#x27;t care and think I&amp;#x27;m crazy for even asking.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>didntcheck</author><text>Just had a watch of their demo video. One of the seating plan sliders allows you to cluster pupils by free school meals (i.e. socioeconomic class) or EAL status. Such wonderful technology!</text></comment>
<story><title>Call to shut down Bristol schools’ use of app to ‘monitor’ pupils and families</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/sep/21/calls-to-shut-down-bristol-schools-use-of-think-family-education-app-pupils-and-families</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>limbicsystem</author><text>Can we also have a discussion about the &amp;#x27;normal&amp;#x27; behaviour monitoring tools like Classcharts that are used by pretty much every school in the UK? These collect fine-grained data about behaviour throughout the day and link it both to the child but also the people that are near that child. It operates all across the child&amp;#x27;s school career. I&amp;#x27;ve tried to opt my kids out of this but it&amp;#x27;s really hard. At best I think they have stopped logging their behaviour but they are still in the data as a &amp;#x27;network&amp;#x27; influence. Classcharts used to boast about how their AI could do behavioural profiling but that looked too creepy so now they just talk about how teachers can use the data for seating planning. I&amp;#x27;m pretty sure that I could use the data to profile a child pretty effectively even after they have left school. God only knows what happens to the data or how it is secured - the school literally don&amp;#x27;t care and think I&amp;#x27;m crazy for even asking.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kwhitefoot</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m so glad I don&amp;#x27;t have children in school in the UK.  There seems to be so much going on that has nothing to do with education.  I&amp;#x27;m glad that when I was at school in the sixties and seventies in the UK none of that existed and teachers pretty much just taught.&lt;p&gt;How did this sort of thing creep into schools without anyone protesting?</text></comment>