What do people think of this going on at my daughter's primary school?

[DoctorBeat]

Nationalism with some gender stereotyping thrown in for good measure? Girls bring in something sweet?! 😒

[WellErrr]

I think nothing of it. It's a good way of getting a 50/50 split.

And there's nothing wrong with celebrating British heritage in Britain. It doesn't make you a crazed DM Britain First nut.

[Leslieknope45]

Is it because they have tried to get half savoury and half sweet? Rather than automatically pick girls for sweet. If I were the person who organised it though, I might have said year 3 bring something savoury, year 4 bring something sweet.

[lisaneedsarest]

I think possibly you are reading too much into the food thing, most likely the school will have wanted to minimise the amount of sweet food brought in (as its often easier to bring in a packet of biscuits/cakes etc) so they split it to girls and boys so that half the school will bring some thing savoury - that way most kids will get to eat a decent lunch. I don't imagine anyone say there thinking girls should bring in the 'sweet' stuff because girls are sweeter!

[AnyFucker]

Hmm. Not too sure about that. It's a handy way to ensure that mostly equal quantities of sweet/savoury food is brought. You usually end up with tons of the same stuff if you don't issue any guidelines at all.

I don't have a problem with celebrating being British either.

[MrNoseybonk]

It does say Boys bring something savoury too, why didn't you mention that?
Would it have been better to swap them round?

[gandalf456]

The whole thing is just urgh.

[DoctorBeat]

Um maybe because boys aren't expected to be "savoury" but girls are expected to be sweet? Anyway more daughter doesn't like sweet food and neither is she sweet so she'll be taking something she likes.

[starry0ne]

I actually think it is great..WE seem to celebrate St Patricks day here more than St George's day...

Also I see nothing wrong with the divide.. It is an easy way of dividing the school.. I can say in our school the intake has dropped so splitting between years wouldn't make it equal... I really not sure what your issue is as I can't see one?

[DoctorBeat]

Yes Gandalf that was my gut reaction. These are impressionable kids, not sure I want my 5 year old insidiously conditioned in this way. Btw we live in the south west where 99.9% of the pupils are white British, but I know that there is a polish girl in my daughter's class. Just seems horribly exclusive for the very small minority of non-British kids in the school.

I bet this is to satisfy a Tory influenced requirement of the national curriculum.

[RiverTam]

The whole thing sounds crap. Why are princesses 'British', particularly given that most of the fairytale ones were German or French. England has no national dress so hopeless if most kids are English.

It's boringly predictable that girls have the sweet option. I can see guidelines are useful but it's such a lazy way to do it, but schools seem to buy into gender stereotypes quite often.

[Chlobee87]

Yeah I think you're overreacting tbh. It sounds like a lovely day for the children, and getting boys and girls to bring different things is purely logistics so that there's a decent spread of different items. Nothing at all wrong with celebrating British heritage in Britain. Even if a family is not British, they live here and send their children to school here so presumably they like Britain and would be happy to join in with our cultural celebrations? I just don't see how this is grounds for anybody to be offended, sorry.

[DoctorBeat]

I'd rather have my daughter learning about other cultures she doesn't get exposed to - she is surrounded by "British" people/culture all the time!

[DoctorBeat]

I'll send her in in a very boring wrap dress and she can pretend to be kate Middleton

[ApocalypseSlough]

I'm an overthinker and would have swapped around the boys'/ girls' requirements. And tbh the fact that it's in deepest whitest Devon makes me a bit about it. In Tower Hamlets, yes and I'd want to see a fab v English spread that was genuinely inclusive- viz marmite or egg and cress sandwiches rather than pork pies and sausages.

[Chlobee87]

You sound like you are resolved to be offended by this so not really sure why you asked for opinions. I don't think it's unusual for a school in any country to occasionally hold a celebration of their own culture. I have seen this in French and Spanish schools for instance and I'm sure they do it all over the place. I'm sure your DD learns about plenty of other cultures in her lessons.

[RhombusRiley]

OP I know where you're coming from. It's the type of unthinking, stereotyped sexist attitude that I see all the time at our primary school. I remember being horrified when DS started P1 that each child had a little picture next to their coat hook - girls had princesses, butterflies or flowers while boys had tractors, space rockets etc. It was especially dumb as there's a girl in the class who likes to wear "boys" uniform and have short hair and would have hated to be categorised in that way. But i know that if I'd raised it I'd have been met with blank stares. It's insidious and it really, really DOES matter but good luck trying to get primary school staff to see that. I have no idea why but at least at our state primary – which is excellent in many ways – it's like attitudes to race and gender are out of the 1950s. Nothing overt, just a total failure to recognise, deal with and reverse creeping, under-the-radar stereotyping like this.

I can also see why some people would say this isn't a big deal as it's a fairly minor example – but I like you would have clocked it immediately and it would piss me off.

[Natsku]

The boy/girl divide is obviously to make an even split of savoury and sweet but probably there was an element of assumption that girls = sweet in choosing which way to split it but apart from that, I don't see the problem with it. Nothing wrong with celebrating National culture, I'm sure a lot of time is spent learning about other cultures (certainly from my memories of primary school it was, lots of times we had to dress up as people from other cultures).

[MrNoseybonk]

Why are princesses 'British', particularly given that most of the fairytale ones were German or French.
It doesn't say that, it says famous Britains, Kings / Queens, etc. I would think it means British Kings, Queens, Princesses, not that Kings, Queens, Princesses are solely the domain of Britain

[TeiTetua]

Seems to me they expect the girls to made of sugar and spice and everything nice; unfortunately snips and snails and puppy-dogs' tails don't fit a menu so well.

[DoctorBeat]

I wish there was a like button tei!

[MrNoseybonk]

The funny thing is, this is probably a St George's Day event and the school probably changed it to British to avoid offending anyone :)

[LauraChant]

Basically the school has completely misunderstood the requirement to promote British values in the curriculum. I spoke to education-type people about this recently for work, and the idea is that you promote the British values of tolerance, democracy and whatever they have been defined at. Everyone said it is definitely not about Union Jack bunting, cream teas, fish and chips etc, and they were all head in hands at the fact that so many nurseries and schools were interpreting it in this way.

[DoctorBeat]

Problem is a predict a load of girls just being dressed up as generic "princesses", not famous British ones...

[CocktailQueen]

Hm, I can see why you're cross. But I also think it's a good thing for schools to celebrate being British! (At the moment there's a drive for schools to promote 'British values;' so perhaps this is what this is all about.)

At nursery I remember ds celebrated Diwali, Chinese new year and all sorts, and not one British event. hey ho.

I'd maybe have a quiet word with the teacher: 'What a great idea, and how about doing a day to celebrate another nationality? Such fun!' and suggesting that next time the boys bring sweet and the girls savoury, or different year groups bring different foods.

[WaspsandBeesSting]

It is St George's Day on 24th April, they are probably tapping into that.

I like many pp don't have an issue with is and think you are reading too much into it.