A Scottish Council has been accused of “knowingly misleading” parents about the safety of school devices.
Writing in The Scotsman, Catriona Stewart has reported that teachers are being told not to report harmful gaming sites accessed on school devices because there are “too many to block”.
The issue emerged after a headteacher shared internal council documents with a parent that show staff being told not to report the issue.
Fife Council has now been accused of “knowingly misleading” parents about the safety of school devices.
A Tayport Primary School parent became concerned when her seven-year-old son disclosed using a computer game called Paper IO 2.
The gaming company markets it as an “addictive masterpiece”.
In response, the school’s headteacher sent the mother-of-three an internal policy document from Fife Council.
It states: “Please note gaming sites cannot be blocked due to the multitude available online and will not be individually blocked.
“If you log a request for this type of site your request will be closed.”
The school said the issue is one of “classroom management” rather than suitable firewalls on council devices.
Despite an apology for the lapse in supervision that allowed her son to access the game, the mother, who asked not to be named, said council policy must change.
Her concerns involved a safeguarding issue in terms of supervision in the classroom.
After considerable questioning of the school to find out whether the game had been blocked, she was told it had not.
“Shockingly, they said it doesn’t meet the criteria to be blocked,” she added.
“And so I kept asking – what are the criteria? Who determines the criteria? How do we amend it?”
The school then shared a screenshot of a document from Fife Council to schools saying any request to block games sites will be closed.
The mother said: “And so children are able to access these addictive and inappropriate sites, which also have third-party advertising, the content of which is completely unknown.
“I have no idea what my son might have seen in class and there isn’t any strategy for handling this.”
Her son had told her that as part of planned computer time on a Friday afternoon pupils had been allowed to choose an activity.
Another child had opened up Paper IO 2.
She said: “I looked it up and it was immediately apparent to me that it was just addictive garbage, it was just nonsense.
“There’s no way it should have been accessible at school.”
The mother-of-three then contacted the school’s joint headteachers to ask how it was possible to access the game and why pupils were able to.
A response from the school was, she says, “dismissive”.
The Fife Council internal guidance goes on to say: “Please note most sites do get categorised and blocked but unfortunately new gaming sites pop up every day.
“Therefore gaming site block requests cannot be actioned and are a classroom management issue.”
Fife Council recently completed delivery of more than 29,000 personal iPads for both primary and secondary children to use in school and at home.
Harry Amies, co-founder of parents online harm campaign group Unplug.Scot, called these types of gaming sites “effectively honeytraps”.
“They are deliberately designed to bypass school filters and to lure kids with free addictive games,” Mr Amies added.
“Many unblocked gaming sites also have hidden text and video chat rooms making them a severe sextortion and grooming risk – indeed parents in Scotland have discovered on these types of gaming sites explicit chats involving young children in which the children are coaxed into sharing personal contact details.
“So for Fife Council to be secretly allowing children to access them and not only discouraging, but blocking teachers from reporting them is an astounding failure in duty of care.”
NHS England set up the UK’s first Gaming Disorder clinic in 2021.
This has seen a more than 400 per cent growth in referrals in recent years of children over 13 with numerous parents of younger children self-referring to the clinic for support with gaming dependency.
Mr Amies added: “Fife’s internal policy to refuse to block addictive gaming sites for children exposes children to harm.
“Their failure to publicise this no-block policy to parents, while telling them that their systems ensure safe browsing on any WiFi is actively putting children in harm’s way and exposing them to severe health risk.
“This is no longer an education question for councils, this is a child health issue.”
Fife Council’s education manager Rona Weir said: “Digital resources are used in classrooms to support and enhance learning, and teachers oversee how and when they are used. As part of this, staff guide pupils to make appropriate choices about the content they access, in line with their age and stage.
“Our schools operate within strict acceptable use policies and make use of industry-standard web filtering to prevent access to inappropriate content.”
Article published in The Scotsman 3rd June 2026
Journalist Catriona Stewart, Education Correspondent
