Tuesday 15 December 2009

The spirit of Christmas


A lot of sentimental sloppy nonsense gets written or reported around this time of year, but sometimes you read something that really does make you wonder if the spirit of Christmas hasn’t been totally demolished under the tidal wave of consumerism or petty bureaucracy.

Today’s piece of Christmas humbug comes to us courtesy of Britain’s burgeoning army of humourless public servants who sound more like Nazi concentration camp guards by the day. “I was only following orders,” they protest as yet another cock-up comes to light.

The latest of these Scrooge moments comes to us via Ryecroft Primary School, in Bradford. Brother and sister Sean and Claire Watson were barred from an end-of-term disco held to reward children with a 100% school attendance record for the Winter term. Those who had been ill or absent for any reason were not invited.

I imagine a disco with just two or three kids wouldn’t have been much fun but that’s not the point. The purpose for holding the disco was to humiliate, exclude and cajole others to improving their school attendance record – a nicely balanced blend of stick and carrot akin to modern day stocks. However, the children in question were just five and seven years old. What’s more, they were barred from the party because they’d had the temerity to take four days off school when their father died of a particularly aggressive form of cancer.

When the children’s mother Samantha phoned the school to confirm that the children had been barred from the party, the robotic twerp of a school secretary assured her that Sean and Claire could not attend because even time off for a bereavement counted as an ‘absence’.

Well, soon the PR shit hit the fan and the school’s headteacher rapidly backtracked and apologised, but not before adding that the way the mother spoke to the school secretary was an aggravating factor and implying that if Samantha had sucked up to the petty little bureaucrat and dripped honey in her ear, she might have deigned to ask the headteacher to bend the rules.

The harridan of a headmistress claimed: 'We have an attendance disco and within that policy we look at the children who have a 100 per cent attendance record. It's not instead of all the normal Christmas parties, it's in addition to that as a reward. We are trying to build a community that attends school and regards school as absolutely vital for the future. It's so strict that, for example, families who have a lot of lates are not invited to the disco because we are committed to getting children here. I would feel so sad to take away this reward for excellence because some people are sad that they are not invited.'

The headmistress also cooed that the school always supported families that suffered bereavements and she was sympathetic to the Watsons' situation – but obviously not that sympathetic!

She added: 'We have gone from the bottom six up 39 places in the league tables of achievement in Bradford. We beat the national standard for writing and for science.'

So that’s all right, then!

26 comments:

  1. Words fail me..............


    Hope you are doing well at home XTM.

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  2. Thanks, Kosmos, I'm getting there :-)

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  3. The way these 2 kids were treated was terrible. Anyhow the idea of a disco based on 100% attendance is crazy in the first place. In a primary school in winter term every child is sure to come down with a bug of some sort and have to take some time off or should they be forced to go in to school when ill, so take longer to recover and spread it around everyone?
    My 9 year old son, being an awkward little individual, would see the disco as a punishment not a reward - he refused to go to his school disco last Friday night!

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  4. This story is shocking. I'm appalled at the idea of the disco in the first place but punishing kids for being careless enough to have a bereavement! This also amounts to punishing kids for illness - how does that sit with disability discrimination I wonder?

    Hope you're doing well with your recuperation.

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  5. Hmmmmm I can see it now, I have the "Black Plague" but I go to school, just so I can get the ability to go to disco. Even though I may be dead by then, and spread the disease to the rest of the school..... Yeah makes a lot of sense, that is why I am sure it is a government initiative.

    Regards,
    Kat from Perth.

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  6. BTW ET, I hope you and Mrs ET are doing well, I hope you have a great Christmas :)

    I will be :)Even if it is going to be 45C on Boxing Day.

    Regards,

    Kat from Perth.

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  7. Progressing well, thanks. Boxing Day at 46 degrees! Ouch. Air conditioning up to max, I think. It will be cold, damp and wet here.

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  8. Headmistress and sack springs to mind.

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  9. that's awful.... Unbelievable!

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  10. What a horrid story, I just cannot believe it! How can a school set up a disco as a "reward" for children as small as this in the first place, a disco is something no one should be constricted to attend anyway! Then first and foremost a school should be teaching empathy - I wonder if these teachers even thought about attending the funeral with the classmates of these children when they were bereaved. What kind of community life is that? It's really the same kind of wickedness as the forbidding of the birthday cake that you told us about some time ago. This story makes me sad and angry. Barbara (Styria)

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  11. There are too many laws in this country already, but if there isn't a current law that would allow the headmistress to be prosecuted for child abuse then one should be passed immediately.

    That's not just angry rhetoric. The woman is trying to make the children feel guilty that their Daddy has died and that they are mourning his loss.

    If she is so effing ignorant of child psychology and care also so little for them as human beings, then she should resign as a useless piece of shite.

    Bloody educational targets. Headteachers should be fighting against their baleful impact, not colluding to the extent of totally abhorrent and perverse behaviour.

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  12. This makes me so angry. How could such insensitive brutes be in charge of so many children's welfare. I imagine the headteacher's bonus will depend on the league table results. Surely, even the dunderhead Ed Balls should realise this is wrong.

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  13. I presume that the head-mistress concerned is a one-legged, lesbian Nazi with a somewhat "tainted" view on normal, everyday life.

    It would be nice if all the kids who do go to this disco contract swine flu.

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  14. I read that it was the council who organised the disco and not the school, but that makes it worse to my mind. Why can't you just go back to what happened 30 yrs ago when we compared what we had brought in for our class party?
    Everything has gone mad in the world today and it makes me sick.
    Betty

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  15. Just as aside, does this remind anyone else of a Rowan Atkinson sketch of a headmaster berating a parent because the child was lazy, unwilling to participate in Rugby, etc etc and only revealed at the end of the interview that said boy was dead?

    Truth is stranger than fiction

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  16. @ Colin: why should the children suffer with swine flu?? It's not even their fault. IMO the teachers (and council) should reconsider their approach to what it means to be living with children. It's living with them and sharing with them that (hopefully) teaches them life skills. Also I do not think it's got to do with their sexual orientation. They're just plain cold at heart; alas, it sometimes happens to everybody; but in a premeditated educational policy it's unprofessional and cruel to act in such a way.
    XTM, best wishes to you from Styria! Barbara

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  17. What a sad state of affairs.....typical of the world we live in at the mo.

    Hope all at XTM towers have a good christmas and a happy new year. I'll raise a glass to you the week after christmas...am on call from the 24th Dec.....

    DP

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  18. Insensitive
    Impractical
    Cruel
    Unreasonable.
    Non of the above even come near describing this story. We are going to be 2 days late for the new term as we are away for the new year, if we are honest and admit to this sin, we could be fined, so most law abiding citizens have to lie and say their child is unwell to get around this. Then hope the child doesn't give the game away. I understand the need for good attendance, but I think there should be a degree of flexibility within reason, instead of being dictated to as to what we do with our children. It wouldn't be so bad if travel companies didn't hike up the prices for holidays during holiday times... I really hope these poor children and their mum are OK - as if losing dad/husband is not devastating enough...

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  19. Daft idea holding a disco anyway.There is enough bullying in schools as it is, so I can imagine that the kids that were invited to go to this disco are now getting a hard time in the yard from the kids that were barred from going.
    Plus it all boils down to discrimination in my mind, all teachers and head teachers should be thoroughly analised by psychologists on a monthly basis, just to see if the hamster is running in the wheel.
    Ness..

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  20. The very idea of holding a "disco" (whatever that is?) for children of that age is totally alien. I went to a very good primary school, followed by grammar school, before going onto university - at the age of those kids I would have been delighted with a nice "tea" (biscuits, chocolate, jelly, "pop", etc. plus some party games and a few trivial presents).

    I have been in tertiary education (as a lecturer at London University) for the whole of
    my working life, and have witnessed the downfall of standards due, initially, to Mrs Thatcher's stupid policies.

    I am, to be perfectly honest, pleased that I do not have children.

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  21. Geesh, and all I got for perfect attendance was a certificate at the year end school awards ceremony (the only thing I ever received at those things). I went to school sickish just so I could get one. I was so relieved that I could stay home when I was ill when I started Jr. High (gr. 8~ age 13).

    I agree it's silly for a dance as a reward...my elementary school (the same one who gave me Perfect Attendance awards) held 'Sock Hops' and only a couple of the eldest students danced the rest lined the walls or engaged in mischief. (Sock Hops are dances where you take your shoes off and dance in your socks-weird I know)

    Maybe XTM you will be dancing soon? With Mrs. XTM of course. To a bit of BeeGees or Boney M?

    Libby in semi-frigid Alberta (-2C)...and it won't be 45C on Boxing Day I can predict right now!

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  22. In other words, the school is going out of its way to teach young children to disregard life balance and to embrace ignorance of the needs and care that their bodies require. Surely this cant be for real....

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  23. I'm afraid it is for real. It just goes to show how arbitrary targets can distort and pervert society, even if the intention behind them is malign. Stalin knew a thing or two about targets.

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  24. My son, who in the last 2 years has missed around months of school through being seriously ill and now diagnosed with a treatable but not curable disease, has been forced to miss out on the 'rewards' trips the school organises to reward those with excellent attendance, behaviour and wearing of uniform. So, even tho my son has had to catch up on his school work with NO support at all from school, he get no recognition of this at all.

    This is high school, to take this attitude to children as young as the ones in this article should surprise and shock me but it doesn't, unfortunately. My experience as a parent has shown me that there is no such thing as 'FAIR' when it comes to education. No matter how much effort a child puts in, they will not receive the recognition and rewards they deserve.

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  25. My mother asked the headmistress of my junior school whether she thought I would pass the 'scholarship'. The headmistress said of course not but not to worry as there'd always be jobs for roadsweepers. And to think I'd been in the 'A' class for several years. I did pass but years later during a long period of unemployment I was turned down as a roadsweeper in spite of my university degree

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  26. The headmistress states that: "We are trying to build a community that attends school and regards school as absolutely vital for the future." I would have thought such actions may have an opposite effect on a number of the kids, in being punished for something that is beyond your control.

    Just another example of the mixed up way the world is heading.

    Keep up the good work on the blog. I will think of you in cold and wet England when I am on the beach here in Sydney over Christmas. Wish you, family and all of the contributors to the blog a Merry and safe Christmas, and Happy New Year

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