Furious parents have been left “up in arms” after a secondary school increased its CCTV coverage to include parts of the toilet areas - a move branded an invasion of privacy.

The Misbourne School in Great Missenden said adding more CCTV in communal areas of the academy site will help improve the safety of pupils and reduce opportunity for bullying, but some parents are not happy with the move.

The CCTV has reportedly been installed in “communal areas and entrances to toilet facilities”, but the school, in Misbourne Drive, has insisted it does not monitor inside cubicles or urinals.

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One upset parent told the Bucks Free Press that they were “furious” at the decision, saying: “The school has placed CCTV in toilets with no information passed to parents as to why and no prior notice that the school intended to go ahead with invading students’ privacy.”

Another said people were in “uproar” on a local Facebook group for The Misbourne parents, saying there had been “no parental consultation and no communication to students”.

But the controversial move was reported in the school’s weekly families bulletin on January 17.

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A message from head teacher Rich Peters reads: “To ensure we can maintain safe facilities, further CCTV monitoring will ‘go live’ later next week in order to observe communal areas and entrances to toilet facilities – this enables us to ensure behaviour is appropriate, to monitor traffic in these areas and safeguard students’ wellbeing.”

In a further statement, a school spokesman told the Bucks Free Press on Monday: “We confirm that we have recently increased CCTV coverage of communal areas of the academy site to help monitor traffic in these areas.

“This includes installing CCTV in the communal areas and entrances to toilet facilities. The CCTV does not monitor inside cubicles nor urinals.

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“Safeguarding our students' wellbeing is The Misbourne's priority and CCTV is part of the many systems we have in place to assist with this.

“Monitoring areas where students congregate, to improve safety and reduce opportunities for bullying, is common practice in schools.

“The use, siting and access to images is closely controlled in line with our CCTV policy.”