Dear Families,

 

The safety, wellbeing and happiness of the children we teach is at the heart of everything we do. Our aim has always been to create an environment where children feel supported, encouraged and free to be creative – a place where they can build confidence, develop a love of the arts and enjoy being part of a positive community.

 

As part of our ongoing commitment to safeguarding, we regularly reflect on our practices to ensure we continue to promote the very best environment for the children in our care. Recent developments in technology, particularly the growth of A.I. and the increasing ability to copy, manipulate and misuse images online, have led many organisations working with children to reconsider how photographs and videos are shared publicly.

 

Having carefully considered this changing landscape, we have decided to take a further step.

From now on, we will no longer use identifiable images or videos of children in our public social media posts or promotional materials. This will take immediate effect for all new social media content, and we plan to update our website over the coming weeks.

 

This decision is rooted in our values. We recognise that there are ways to share children’s achievements safely and responsibly, and many organisations are making thoughtful choices about how they do this. Our conclusion is that we would rather remove this risk altogether than simply find ways to manage it. We are not asking how close we can get to what is acceptable. We are considering what is the most responsible and caring choice we can make for the children and families who place their trust in us.

 

This does not mean we will stop celebrating the wonderful work our students do. We will continue to share the successes, creativity and experiences that make our organisation special, but we will focus on our activities and in-person events rather than publicly sharing children’s identities.

We also hope this decision will help us build our community in a different way. Rather than relying on social media to tell people about what we do, we would love to continue to grow through something much more meaningful: the recommendations of the families who know us.

 

If your child has enjoyed being part of our organisation and you value what we provide, the greatest support you can give us is to tell others about your experience and introduce us to families who may benefit from joining our community. Thank you to all of you who already do this, and to all of you for choosing our activities.

 

We’re proud of the environment we’ve created together, where children can explore, perform, build confidence and feel they belong, safe from harm.

 

Thank you for your continued trust and support.