Mercy Ballymahon Website Policy

The prime purpose of our website is to provide information. The school website will enable us to provide information for existing pupils and parents and to promote the school to prospective ones. The site can be used to showcase examples of pupils work - in words, pictures, sound or movie clips - and can share resources for teaching and learning both within the school and with colleagues elsewhere.
Generally: The website will be regularly checked to ensure that there is no content that compromises the safety of pupils or staff. There will be no personal information of either teachers or pupils including home address and contact details on the school web pages.
Pupil's Work: Our Pupils will be given the opportunity to publish projects, artwork or school work on the school website in accordance with the following policies:
•    The publication of student work will be co-ordinated by each teacher. The school website will publish the first name only of pupils alongside their work.
•    Pupil's work will appear in an educational context on Web pages with a copyright notice prohibiting the copying of such work without express written permission. Pupils will continue to own the copyright of any work published.
Photographs: The school anticipates using digital photographs of special group activities or events. The content of photos will focus on the activity or the piece of work in question.
•    The school will endeavour to use digital photographs, audio or video clips focusing on group activities. Content focusing on individual students will not be published on the school website without parental permission. Video clips may be password protected.
•    The school website will avoid publishing the first name and last name of individuals in a photograph.
•    The school will ensure that the image files are appropriately named – will not use pupils’ names in image file names or ALT tags if published on the web.
•    We reserve the right to publish photos and schoolwork. If a parent/guardian wishes to avail of an opt-out clause in this regard, an Opt Out form must be signed and returned to the school.
Links: A number of organisations and institutions are linked to our website. Mercy Secondary School is not responsible for the contents or reliability of the linked websites and does not necessarily endorse the views expressed within them. Listing shall not be taken as endorsement of any kind. We cannot guarantee that these links will work all of the time and we have no control over availability of the linked pages.
This policy may be updated as deemed necessary.
Dated December 15th 2009.