Now schools putting body cameras on their teachers
TEACHERS are using bodyworn cameras in an attempt to stamp out bad behaviour.
One of three secondary schools trying the technology said cameras helped ‘de- escalate’ confrontations with pupils.
Larry Davis, deputy head of Southfields Academy in South West London, said: ‘My aim is how best can we just focus on the teaching and learning rather than dealing with confrontations.
‘Since we introduced [the cameras] we have very few issues in regards to that – maybe once a month.’
Two other unnamed secondary schools are also trying out cameras, one of them to tackle anti- social behaviour by young people who are not pupils, according to education news website Schools Week. A small number of teachers at the schools taking part wear hi-vis jackets with the words ‘body worn video’ on the back to show they may be recording their encounters with pupils.
But Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch, said: ‘Young people shouldn’t see teachers as walking CCTV cameras or fear being filmed without their consent.
‘There is no evidence that recording children deals with the causes of behavioural issues but it can create oppressive environments and so we urge these schools to reconsider.’
It comes after the schools watchdog Ofsted announced it would be trialling the use of body-worn cameras by inspectors visiting unregistered schools that may be operating illegally. A spokesman said the move ‘would improve the ability of our inspectors to carry out their job safely while also securing best evidence... and improving the ability of the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute people who conduct suspected unregistered schools’.
Tom Ellis, of the Institute of Criminal Justice Studies at the University of Portsmouth, has previously defended the use of cameras in school, saying: ‘Where there is a perceived threat to a member of staff or pupil for example, they are used. It’s not like a surveillance camera.’
Two schools provided cameras to teachers in 2017 in an attempt to stamp out ‘low-level background disorder’ but the pilot scheme was abandoned.
The Department for Education said yesterday it does not monitor the use of body cameras and it was up to individual schools to decide if they were necessary.
‘Oppressive environments’