The Forums

Along with the other benefits of membership of Education Otherwise, we are pleased to announce the launch of a brand new members' area on this website, with a forum for children where they can chat to others, make online friends, exchange ideas and have fun.

Use of this forum is limited to EO members. All parents will be asked to read and accept the terms and conditions of the use before their children can post. We also ask parents to read through the list rules with your child/ren.

Whilst EO strives to provide a safe space for the children and young people to chat, no provider of online space can guarantee child safety. Parents are advised that they remain responsible for their children's safety when using the forum. Parents will have their own login so they are aware of what their children do whilst on the forum. They are encouraged to read posts on the children's boards so that they can supervise their children as Education Otherwise cannot act in loco parentis. We do ask however, that you don't reply to the children's posts.

The children's message boards are mainly post-moderated, i.e. messages appear on the boards first and will be checked later by moderators. Although moderators keep an eye on the conversations on the boards, they may not immediately be aware of any potential problems. We ask members to report any posts which concern them.

The moderators don't chat on the boards and the children will be unaware that they're there unless they need to intervene. If a child wants to report a conversation they feel uncomfortable with, an easy way to do so is by using the report button at the top of every post.

When we open a user account for your child or teenager, we turn off the facility which allows them use Personal Messages (PMs) and Emails. This is for safety reasons as we are unable to vet our members and have no control over who is chatting to your child in this way.

We appreciate that some children and teenagers may wish to have this facility turned on to enable them to send PMs and emails to others on the forum. If you are happy for your child to do this, then you need to request a permission form to have your child's use of PMs or email on the board turned on. The form asks you to acknowledge that this is at your own risk.