A headteacher has claimed that staff nationwide are increasingly suffering abuse on social networking sites.

Mike Welsh, who is head of Goddard Park Primary School in Swindon, was among a series of headteachers who warned about internet abuse at the National Association of Head Teachers’ (NAHT) conference in Brighton.

Mr Walsh, pictured, who is a past president of the union, told the conference how a fake Facebook page was set up under the name of a male teaching assistant in his school in Park North.

He reported how a great deal of “inappropriate” material was posted on the site. It had taken six to eight weeks and a great deal of trouble to get the Facebook page taken down. During that time, the school had needed to alert parents about the existence of the page.

“In the meantime a great deal of inappropriate things were said in his name. Clearly, a lot of parents saw that,” said Mr Walsh.

The Swindon headteacher and his fellow professionals are calling on the Government to draw up guidelines for tackling abuse on social networking sites. They say the incidents are indicative of the growing levels of violence they face in their work.

According to the NAHT, they believe social networking sites will pose a bigger threat to schools than the Ofsted inspections in a couple of years.

The union claims one in five head teachers have suffered abuse on social networking sites and there is a fear that groups outside the school’s control could campaign for the removal of a head teacher, or against a particular teacher or pupil.

General secretary, Russell Hobby said: “Sometimes it is anonymous, so you don’t know the source of the complaint.

“It is a growing issue. It can be something like a pupil saying: ‘We don’t like a particular teacher – let’s get him or her’. It can seem trivial like ‘we don’t like what that teacher is wearing’. Then there is the occasional more serious incident, like someone saying ‘this headteacher needs a good kicking’.”

Mr Hobby revealed that in two cases schools had called in police to investigate campaigns against heads.

He pointed out that at least one headteacher had been forced out of her job over a row which was stoked up on social networking sites, to the later regret of the parent who realised their school had lost a good leader.

“It can be parents, it can be pupils – ex-pupils is a common thing,” he said.

“Younger people are more likely to do this. Facebook will obviously be a bigger threat than Ofsted in years to come.”

Another delegate, Sue Street, told the conference about the difficulties caused by Wikipedia and how difficult it was for schools to counter inaccurate entries.

The London deputy head said: “A lot of schools have to have a person spending part of the week checking to make sure that what’s posted on sites is an accurate reflection.”