I entirely agree with Christopher's comments. However, you do need to be able to access archives of mails I think. Until recently qwe allowed Hotmail etc, on the grounds that if it wasn't on our server, we didn't need to get involved. Ha ha! One set of threatening emails sent by a student soon undid that idea. Don't scan or read but have them if the pastoral people feel something serious has happened. Of course you need an openly published policy for this. Same goes for staff...! John Low

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I want to scan the pupils incoming and outgoing e-mails for offensive words so that I can enforce our acceptable use policy.

Don't. Please don't. It's not polite. It means you don't trust them. It has the makings of a police state.

But worse, once they cotton on to what you are doing, they'll thoroughly enjoy the game of emailing each other with offensive things that bypass your checks, looking for words you don't know and ways of disguising them that you won't spot.

Many years ago a boy here got published in the school magazine one of those non-rhyming non-scanning poems so beloved of trendy young English teachers. It consisted of a four-line verse followed by a three-line one. The first verse was something like

From the Elysian fields ... Under the something tree ... Cooing away like doves ... Killing the .....

and this was obviously a triumph of creative writing. It's a battle you can't win. Instead, just come down heavily on occasional things for which there has been a good reason for you to see.

-- Christopher Dawkins, Felsted School, Dunmow, Essex CM6 3JG 01371-822698, mobile 07816 821659 cchd@felsted.essex.sch.uk

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