In the pre-digital era, when a student wanted to poke fun at the history teacher's implausible wig or express wrath at the PE master's failure to appreciate the existence of antiperspirant, the traditional forum for expressing their malice was the back of the toilet door.
Now when a young person seeks vengeance, mild or otherwise, growing numbers of them are turning to the internet and online social networks as a platform for smear tactics.
"We have seen a dramatic rise in incidents reported by teachers with issues relating to their professional identity," says David Wright of South-West Grid for Learning (SWGfL), hosts to the new UK Safer Internet Centre. Often, pupils use their own web pages to post damaging remarks. "These allegations are not only being posted by children but also parents and even colleagues," says Wright.
The ugly trend has prompted the centre to launch an internet-based, e-safety helpline for professionals across the south-west, due to go live this year on Safer Internet Day (8 February 2011).
But the issue of online reputation can also be a useful route into teaching students about e-safety generally, says Karl Hopwood, an e-safety consultant and ex-headteacher.
Many of those he works with have been "fraped" – short for "Facebook rape": in which the student's account is violated, usually by someone who knows the password, who then changes the status often to something sexually explicit.
Deeply unpleasant it may be but it brings home to students the harm that can be caused by comments made online.
"One of the things I do is trawl around Facebook to see what pupils are putting online and then share some of this, anonymised, with them," says Hopwood. "It makes them realise that private is not always quite what they thought. We know that universities and employers are looking at profiles before offering places or jobs so I think this should be the tack we take with them."
Advice and guidance on emerging e-safety issues as well as the ongoing ones such as cyber-bullying and "sexting", the sending of sexually explicit messages, is on offer from a number of sources, including Facebook itself.
Help from peers
One of the most valuable is Becta's Safetynet, the online forum where educators can seek help from their peers on any aspect of e-safety and where new risks and solutions are often reported first. The good news is that, despite Becta's demise, the forum will carry on, supported by the Department for Education.
A self-review tool developed by SWGfL, 360 Degree Safe, enables schools to evaluate their own online safety provision, which can lead to the E-Safety Mark, validated by the University of Plymouth.
Us Online (v2) from Roar Educate is an e-safety package for key stages one to four and includes online surveys to help teachers find out how their pupils use the internet.
Smart Learning's ICT Skills Builder VLE Packs for years seven to nine, to be launched at this year's Bett show, also covers e-safety.
Digital Parenting is a new magazine from Vodafone to help parents get to grips with their children's digital world with contributors such as child psychologist and e-safety guru Tanya Byron.
And Redstor, a managed services provider, has teamed up with Securus on a new e-safety service for local authority networks. It flags up child protection and behavioural issues, such as the use of proxy bypass sites, as well as key words indicating self-harm and drugs.
