And for good reason. It is not hard to find news stories on a weekly basis where the negative aspects of connecting people with people across a fairly anonymous network are brought in to sharp and often tragic focus. Take the sad case of 14 year old Eden Wormer from Washington state who recently committed suicide after years of playground and online bullying or the recent case in Brighton of a girl who had to move away from both her school and the county in which she lived to escape Facebook bullying.

School staff do not escape the negative coverage, especially where the story turns “salacious” like the recent coverage of the teacher from Wales whose inappropriate Facebook posts hit the headlines earlier this month.

In the face of such local, national and international negative coverage schools are burying their heads in the sand and deciding the best course of action as far as their own social media activity is concerned, is not to do anything. This way, they can placate anxious parents and governors by being seen as not endorsing the pathways used by errant staff and bullying children.

But they are confusing two (if not three) separate areas:

1. Online bullying and inappropriate comments are behaviour and HR issues. They can (and should) be covered by appropriate policies and procedures as in any area of staff and student behaviour, be that online, offline, written, verbal, shouted, screamed, whispered or punched. The method in which these transgressions occur isn’t the problem, it is the transgressions themselves.

2. Use of any form of communications for the distribution of clear, relevant, engaging and useful information is a good thing. Social networks, like a newsletter, are a form of communication. Schools like newsletters, therefore schools should like social networks.

3. The use of social networks for actually assisting in the education of children is growing fast. Teachers love being able to get their hands on relevant content and resources for lessons and services such as YouTube for Schools and Facebook for Educators are paving the way for more and more education to take place online and on social networks.

Just because number one happens, doesn’t mean number two and number three shouldn’t.

If we take Facebook as an example, it has over 483 million daily users worldwide. So what? Well, some of those users will be your current parent cohort and also potential parents. So that means you have a ready made audience for your very own Facebook “fan” page.

Facebook is a brilliant platform for sharing information. Parents love information that will make their lives easier. Share information with parents on Facebook and it is a marriage made in heaven. You can tell them about upcoming events you want them to come to, good news you want them to hear, important announcements they need to be aware of, even tell them the school is closed due to snow.

It is also free (unlike SMS messaging) and if you have the right kind of set up, you can publish the same information to your Facebook page at the same time as to your website, avoiding task duplication.

You also DO NOT need to engage with people on Facebook. You can simply “turn off” the ability of people to post comments on your page. This means you do not need to moderate the page to either delete negative comments or respond to genuine requests for more information. Just direct people to your website (also known as “driving traffic”) for them to email or call you or learn more about the school in a controlled environment.

Engaging with people on Facebook in its fullest sense can come later, once you are more confident and have the requisite skills in place. There are real benefits to taking full advantage of the engagement features of Facebook. It is better that people put their negative comments to you directly so you can deal with them in a positive and proactive manner and this is one channel for them to do so.

Remember, always communicate with people in the way they like to be communicated with. They will then take more notice and also be grateful to you for taking the effort to do it.

In terms of social networks, users will also view you as an organisation that is forward thinking, open, trusting and innovative.

Not a bad set of characteristics to be judged upon and certainly not negative!

With support from the BBC and teaching staff, school students created mainly audio and video reports covering a variety of newsworthy topics from the Olympics to the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Two reporters from one London school even interviewed the Under-Secretary-General of the UN and Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict on Skype. The reporters asked questions about the Special Representative’s involvement to stop children being used as soldiers in South Sudan.

A series of practice news days provided students with the chance to rehearse for the main news day, in March 2012. BBC News presenter and former teacher Huw Edwards, working on the School Report project, commented “Over the years I’ve run many journalism workshops in schools. So I’ve seen how much fun it can be and how much can be learnt when there are real deadlines, real audiences and real standards to meet. I’m involved because I want to give young people the chance to make the news themselves, and I want to share the principles of good journalism.”

Students at Carshalton High School for Girls in London, reported on a horrific coach crash in Switzerland and provided an insightful report in which students looked at addiction to video games and the impact on the teenagers of today.

One environmentally conscious young student at Cranbourne Business and Enterprise College in London had a once-in-a-lifetime meeting with the high profile fashion designer, Vivienne Westwood.

In 2011,  her younger sister had started a new project at school entitled ‘climate cops’. She found that this was boring when taught and wanted to raise interest in the classroom. She decided to write to Vivienne Westwood after her mother had once seen her talking passionately about climate change on the Jonathan Ross show. The pair sent the letter along with a drawing of birds and animals they see daily, in the hope of gaining some advice on making the topic more interesting.

Much to their surprise, Vivienne Westwood personally replied and included their letter and drawings on her ‘get a life’ website and also mailed out copies of her newly written manifesto on what she is trying to achieve. The sisters were then invited to Vivienne’s Red Label show in London and were invited backstage to meet her. One commented “She is such a passionate lady and very caring, I think it is great that someone in her position cares so much about the future of the human race, she is trying her hardest to make the planet a safe place to live for our children’s children.”

Undoubtedly a success, schools will now be looking to BBC News School report day 2013.

To take a look at the day, as it happened, visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/schoolreport/

To view the  website, click here.

Concept4 were initially commissioned to develop the Sixth Form brand, which has now been completed and applied to a variety of marketing collateral.  We also produce the main school prospectus and other ad-hoc marketing collateral.