Facebook came about in my first year at university. It was fun, social. In less than a decade I had ex-students using Instagram as a place of ‘work’. As someone who has always used social media for purely social purposes, I was taken aback. I couldn’t believe my students were ‘make up influencers’ and ‘fashion influencers’. Whilst answering the most mundane questions on metaphors, similes and the purpose of the Porter in Macbeth in my classroom (for the sake of the ‘all important’ GCSE), they were receiving ‘DMs’, follow requests, likes and ‘reposts’ in the outside world. To them social media was exciting, fresh, a new world of possibilities. To their teachers, it was a world of online bullying, unsolicited exposure and danger. So, how do we find the middle ground? How do we ensure as teachers, parents and educators we are learning about the online world our children are inheriting, not to just warn and protect them against it, but to enable what can be a very progressive and exciting future, with effective social media management? 

When I first came up with the idea of School Should Be it was in conversation with my students about the online world. By engaging in what they see, hear and read, I was learning with them – I went from being their ‘teacher’ to someone helping them navigate a world no one knows enough about yet. And the discussions went from ‘Miss, what’s your favourite Instagram filter?’ to ‘Miss, did you see what Kim posted? What did you think?’ It encouraged a healthy, safe space for discussion. No preaching, warnings or safety filled assemblies. A central part of my time with students in the classroom was to help them navigate this online world, which is fast becoming their normal.