A school is helping pioneer a social networking system to protect pupils from cyberbullying.

Eastburn Junior and Infants School, near Keighley, is piloting a safe Facebook-style system developed by Keighley company, WebAnywhere.

It follows the school urging parents to ban their children from using the Facebook site after a year six pupil received a “foul and abusive message” from someone pretending to be another pupil.

WebAnywhere’s Student Jotter has similarities with the hugely popular Facebook site but retains a key safety feature, ensuring teachers can monitor what students are accessing.

The school’s technology consultant, Karen Pickard, said: “We’ve been helping develop the system and have been back to WebAnywhere with some modifications.

“They looked at them and agreed to implement a number. It is confined to the school, controlled and monitored by the school.

“It allows pupils to communicate with other pupils in the scheme, but not elsewhere.”

She said that both parents and children signed up to a Code of Conduct.

Sean Gilligan, who founded WebAnywhere in 2003, said: “The experience of Eastburn shows that there can be a negative side to social networking sites, but we have worked hard to make Student Jotter completely safe for pupils.

“Technology plays a key role in the classroom and it is important that both teachers and students can take advantage of this technology and use it to their benefit.”

Student Jotter was specifically designed to encourage online interaction among pupils and teachers.

Pupils could write blogs, post messages on each other’s ‘walls’ and upload pictures and documents. They could also add ‘friends’ but it is restricted to fellow pupils.

It also provided an online environment where students could store e-Portfolios, a government-backed initiative which offers pupils their own personal online space.

Research by charity Beatbullying found that almost 12 per cent of 11 to 16-year-olds who had been ‘cyberbullied’ were targeted using Facebook.

Emma-Jane Cross, chief executive of Beatbullying, said: “We know the consequences of cyberbullying are just as traumatic as those of face-to-face bullying.

“In the past year alone, we’ve witnessed tragic suicides resulting from relentless online hate campaigns.”