Social media use

The Department for Education’s social media policy and how we interact with our social media followers.

We use social media to share news and views with people working in:

  • schools
  • colleges
  • local authorities
  • children’s services

We also use social media to communicate with parents, carers, children and young people.

Our social media channels

Our channels are:

We use these channels to comment on our policies and promote the work we do.

We also use these channels to share stories, comments or opinions we think will be of interest to our followers.

Facebook

We post:

  • information on announcements
  • content from speeches, visits and events by the Secretary of State for Education and other Department for Education (DfE) ministers
  • contributions and blog posts from schools, charities and other groups that we think will be of interest to people who like our page
  • stories about groups and professionals who have successfully adopted our policies

X

We share:

  • major announcements, statements, statistics and research publications
  • breaking news stories and issues affecting our work
  • speeches, visits and events by the Secretary of State for Education and other DfE ministers
  • the latest content posted on our YouTube, Instagram and Facebook pages
  • alerts when public consultations have launched or are about to close

Messages and replies

We welcome feedback, ideas and involvement from all our followers.

We are currently unable to respond to direct messages.

We cannot get involved in any discussion about party politics.

Moderation

Our social media team moderates all our channels from Monday to Friday during office hours, 9am to 5pm.

We will delete:

  • abusive, racist, sexist, homophobic or inflammatory comments
  • comments we consider to be spam
  • personal information, such as telephone numbers or address details
  • posts that identify individual DfE staff members
  • posts that advertise commercial activity or ask for donations

Following other social media users

We:

  • will only engage with social media posts with a non-commercial interest – being engaged does not imply endorsement of any kind
  • may follow you if you follow us – being followed by us does not imply endorsement of any kind

Our blogs

We share news, photos and videos on:

  • Buying for schools – for people who buy for schools and for buying decision-makers
  • DfE digital – information about our DfE digital, data and technology service teams
  • Education hub – information for the media, education professionals, parents and carers
  • Teaching blog – information for teachers

Comments

We encourage our readers to leave comments on our blog posts and to share any views or questions they may have.

We monitor all comments and will not publish any comments that break our participation guidelines and moderation policy.

DfE media enquiries

Journalists should contact our press office direct. Do not contact us through our social media channels.

DfE media enquiries

Central newsdesk 020 7783 8300

Enquiry line for journalists only.

Opening times:
Monday to Friday: 8am to 7pm
Outside of these hours, the number will divert to the duty media officer

DfE freedom of information (FOI)

Do not use our social media channels for making FOI requests.

To make an FOI request, contact us direct.

Freedom of information (FOI) requests

Department for Education
Piccadilly Gate
Store Street
Manchester
M1 2WD

Contact form https://form.education...

Telephone 0370 000 2288

Please note, we receive a large volume of requests asking for lists of contact details for schools, which are available from our 'Get information about schools' service (https://get-information-schools.service.gov.uk/)

Other ways of getting in touch

DfE general enquiries

Contact form https://www.gov.uk/con...

Telephone 0370 000 2288

Opening times
Monday to Friday: 9am to 5pm
Closed at weekends and bank holidays

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