HOW would you feel if your teenage son was expelled from school, just months before his GCSEs, because of some very ill-judged ‘jokes’ he made on social media, and later apologised for?

If you care about your child’s education, you might well react in a similar way to the parents of the Abingdon School boy who is now facing that exact fate.

School children have always got into trouble for making offensive remarks, but in the age of social media, it is easier than ever to get yourself into trouble by doing something stupid.

In this case, a 15-year-old boy has potentially done serious damage to his own future partly because of how social media works: these posts weren’t reported to teachers at his school by the intended recipients, but by pupils at a different school who happened to see them and were understandably disgusted.

None of this is to say, of course, that the posts themselves were acceptable, but the case raises the incredibly difficult question about culpability, and at what age a child can fully understand the ramifications of sharing images like this.

If a primary school pupil sent a picture of Nazi imagery to a Jewish pupil, we might take a more sympathetic view on the basis that a child of that age cannot possibly understand the full meaning and potential interpretations of such an act.

At 15, a boy is still to young to be tried as an adult at court.

This paper has chosen not to name this pupil and his family precisely because he is a child, and naming him now in such a public way really could ruin his chances of redeeming himself.

Abingdon School did not feel able to give him another chance.

There is no doubt that this 15-year-old boy's actions are unacceptable: he clearly to knew to some extent what he was doing, and should be punished – but his case is yet another reminder that, as a society, we urgently need to work out how to help children use social media safely so they don't harm themselves and others.