An East Hampshire school has removed identifiable images of children from its website and social media amid growing concerns over how photographs of youngsters can be manipulated online.

Highfield School in Liphook has introduced the new policy from September, meaning pupils’ faces will no longer appear on its website, social media channels or other public digital platforms.

The independent nursery, pre-prep and prep school, which teaches children aged two to 13, said the decision was made to protect pupils as technology makes it increasingly easy for photographs to be misused or altered.

Instead, the school will use photographs taken from a distance or close-ups in which individual children cannot be identified.

Headteacher Suzannah Cryer said: “Everything we do, from how we teach to how we care for children in the corridors and on the playing fields, is guided by one principle: safeguarding comes first.

“That principle doesn’t stop at the school gates. It extends to how we handle images, because a photograph is, in its own way, a piece of someone’s identity – and protecting that identity is part of protecting them.

“Safeguarding also means thinking ahead. As the digital world changes, so too must the way we think about protecting children within it.

“We don’t want to wait for something to happen before we respond; we want to make thoughtful choices now that reflect the world our children are growing up in.”

The school has spent the past year developing ways to promote school life without showing identifiable pupils.

Director of marketing and communications Caroline Beldham said: “We are not stepping away from celebrating school life – far from it.

“We are being more intentional about what we share publicly with no identifiable images of children on our website, social media or other public digital platforms.”

Staff will continue taking photographs showing pupils’ faces, but these will only be shared privately with parents and in school publications.