A school head has praised the alertness of a parent whose daughter was tricked into responding to a bogus teenager on Facebook.

The mother became suspicious about the online conversations with someone purporting to be a girl.

The fake Facebook profile was deleted and she mentioned it to her daughter's school, Homewood School and Sixth Form Centre, in Tenterden.

Principal Sally Lees said: "This all happened outside school - we don't have Facebook in school.

"In a way it is a good new story as the mother was alert and did exactly the right thing by raising her suspicions.

"She was monitoring what her daughter was doing which is brilliant. The mother alerted us because she wanted to let us know what had happened.

"By then it was all over. We took the opportunity to remind our students about being internet aware and to be very careful about who they invite to be friends."

Mrs Lees said that was done by tutors at the afternoon register and through an assembly.

The police were contacted, but as the Facebook account had been closed and there had been nothing sexual about the online conversations, no action was taken.

Mrs Lees said staff regularly talked to the students abount internet dangers and invited people in to speak, like representatives from CEOP (Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre).

"This incident became a non-event because the parent was so alert," added Mrs Lees.

"She did not know anything about this person, became suspicious and took the right action.

"The important thing is to get parents to be alert. All parents need to be vigilant and let us know is anything is going on."

For more information about internet saftey, go to the CEOP site http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/

Anyone with concerns about online sexual predators is asked to report them to Kent Police by calling 101 or contact CEOP, contact details on their website.