5 year old with an email address

[nfn]

My son has come home from school tonight with lots of paperwork for the new school year, including an update sheet for his personal details, emergency contacts etc. Down the list of phone numbers etc there is a line which says: Child's email address - and he appears to have one!

I know he doesn't have his own addy at home (he uses mine) and I also know that the school is very keen on all children from nursery upwards to understand computers but I didn't know that my son had his own email. When I asked him he said he'd never used it and his friend's dad didn't know anything about it either.

Until tomorrow when I can ask at the school in person I just wondered if anyone else's Infant school children has on, is it common?

[mrspswayze]

my, or..if I had a 6 year old grandson, he would need an e-mail address to play his sims 2 on line game and get his kit from the Red Sox fanshop, so it is pretty much essential......by the way, the school are not allowed to post a child's real name or age or photo on line without parental written consent, I believe.  err, ok nfn

[B00]

I've no idea why nfn- but i'd feel funny about it too. Why would a 5 year old have an email address? and god what if the spam thingy isnt on? he's gonna get alsorts flooding his inbox!

Don't forget to ask em, and dont accept any old crap- give em some welly girl!

And whilst I think about it- if it's a school thing- shouldnt you have been told about it beforehand?

[mycatis]

I would definately be annoyed that they didnt tell me first.  Just asked my son and he says they do 'puters at school but don't have an e-mail address. Go talk to them and dont feel bad about being angry, I would be x x x

[nfn]

Thanks folks.

Boo, I would have thought I'd have had to sign an acceptance or something. his addy is actually (not using his real name obviously)! [email protected], so in a way his name is being used. I'm really not too happy about this

[shaz-rla]

Not heard of a child at school having an e-mail address nfn!  I am a parent governor at our local school and would not be happy if they had given any of my children an e-mail address without consent.  Is it a personal address or a class address?  I would almost say a class address would be more acceptable.  Go in and get them told!

[Jules001]

I have worked in a Middle School which is for children aged 8-12 and they have a log in name and password to get on to the schools network, it maybe your son is getting confused with that, or that somehow the school has got an internal e-mail system (if this is possible) , my daughter is 13 and has never been given a school e-mail

[miss_chase]

the secondary school kids where i worked last year didn't have a personal school email address (although they all had hotmail accounts - NOT suggested by us!!). i think it must be a mistake.

However, do bear in mind that school networks are very secure in that there are filters on web access and the IT department will be able to see exactly what has been sent/received... so if they are being super keen on getting kids IT literate i wouldn't worry too much about his safety.

Let us know what the school says...

[Mistopheles]

It isn't uncommon - more and more infant schools issue everyone with an email address. They are usually very carefully monitered and filtered, so that only registered people can send an email to it - e.g. a school teacher.

[liquoricemad]

I work in a high school (11-18), and all the pupils can have email addresses if they want. They are issued as:

user01**@theschoolname.countyname.sch.uk

Obviously, the computers have security software, so there is no chance of viruses. It's up to the pupils how they use this facility, any misuse results in them being banned for a while. I have an email address at the school and have never received any spam, unlike if they were given an msn address. Kids now come into the school at year 7 fully conversant in ICT, they are much more able than the current year 10's and 11's. While I agree that 5year old's are a bit young to use it, email is part of the technology. Perhaps the email address is not a real, live email address at all, though - it might be there to show how the address is formatted. Look forward to hearing what the school say tomorrow!

[sunflower68]

What I don't get mistopheles is why a teacher would be emailing a pupil (especially one so young)  unless of course it is for an ICT lesson I guess. 

[liquoricemad]

Sunflower, they email work to teachers, but use it mainly to talk to each other!

[Mrs_Pegasus]

I work in a secondary school and know that we ban sites such as hotmail because of the spam.  All primary schools I know sign up to the list of very carefully selected sites (although they banned the BBC site recently which was a little embarassing).  Pupils are not allowed to access their emails during school although we encourage their parents to provide us with parent emails so we can contact them with newsletters.

I dont think a primary school child needs email at school.

[pixi]

morning nfn, I just asked abs and he said he doesnt have school email either and also they are actually not allowed to go into any email addys on school pcs.  I think you really ought to investigate, as I feel this is strange, even abs says it is wrong, if the email is really his and not a group one maybe you could ask the school to cancel/delete the email account

[sunflower68]

Yes liquorice I can understand its use if demonstrating the email concept to a group of reception children.  My daughter is still learning to read at reception so would have no use emailing anybody.  My kids' school has my email address for newsletters etc which is fine.

[normel]

All norfolk children are given email addresses that are not related to where they live and do not have to use them. In fact they are not taught how to until they are in year 3 I think.
The software has lots of firewalls and safety precautions. Other people only know their address if they tell them.