Can someone send a note to Rebekah Vardy and Coleen Rooney? They need to go to the head of year’s office immediately.
Because, let’s face it, the only way this particular online spat is getting sorted is with the help of an experienced teacher.
If you have no idea what I am talking about, then here’s a quick overview of the messy, tangled affair. Yesterday morning, Coleen tweeted that after suspecting someone had been selling stories about her to The Sun, she had played detective and uncovered that the leak was from...Rebekah Vardy’s account.
Then Vardy replied with:
It all feels rather reminiscent of a Year 9 fallout.
As entertaining as it is to watch this play out (I particularly appreciate the Line of Duty memes), the truth is that what is happening with Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy is just a scaled-up version of a teen spat. The kind that takes up hours of teachers’ time filling in statements, collecting witnesses and untangling various dubious narratives.
So what advice can we give to the two ladies in question?
PSHE for Rooney and Vardy
Well, we would not take sides.
We would first ask Vardy why she was sharing her social media passwords with others. Keeping those safe is internet 101.
Second, we would ask why they felt the need to broadcast this argument on social media. We would describe the dangers of doing so and explain how it exacerbates problems, and causes more hurt to all involved in the long run.
And then we would focus on the wider picture. What we’re seeing here further feeds into the narrative that women’s friendships are problematic, and that women look to pull each other down, rather than raise each other up.
Reframing the narrative
This is not an online problem - it just amplifies issues that pre-date the mobile phone and social media. This is really about self-esteem, self-worth and the clash between what we want others to think of us and our private behaviour. Social media is obviously not helping these things, but it isn’t the cause.
So, sanctions that attempt to tackle the platform, not the underlying issue, are unlikely to work. We’ve delivered assemblies cautioning students about oversharing online. Warned about “keyboard warriors” and the permanence of the internet: once it’s out there, it’s everywhere. We’ve banned phones.
And this isn’t making a difference to the frequency (and the rising intensity) of the social-media-related problems we’re seeing in our schools.
What Rooney, Vardy and all the students in our schools need to spend more time doing is working on their feelings of self-worth. If our students were confident in themselves, if they felt validated and valued by their friends, if they were secure in themselves, then we wouldn’t see as many of these kinds of dramas. We need to support young women in this, not demonise them.
