Aged 15, our daughter, Frankie took her own life at home in September 2018 after a ‘normal’ day at school. She had no history of suicide attempts. Andy and I were devastated and at an absolute loss as to why she had done this.
It was only the school’s scrutiny of her actions that day that revealed Frankie had been on a school iPad for over 2 hours, unsupervised. She had accessed material about violent rape, self-harm and stories on the site Wattpad that ended in suicide, the last of which she copied later in her bedroom.
A forensic search of her school laptop also revealed Frankie had accessed other sites at school over the year, where she researched horrific material on self-harm and suicide. We, the school and Ofsted were totally unaware this was happening. Months before Frankie’s death, an Ofsted report said safeguarding policies were up-to-date. “Pupils are appropriately supervised at all times,” it read. Less than a year later, a full inspection said safeguarding was ‘effective’.
