To think this is not an activity in primary school

Nothing wrong with politics being taught in schools. I presume it taught for and against and bias etc.
I doubt OP’s son’s geography lesson did any of that.

Well maybe you respond to peoples threads assuming everything they say is actually not what happened, but I tend to respond to the facts given.

It wasn't your post per se. More the fact that having been dragged there as a primary school child I am one of the least " worried" people I know about nuclear weapons or similar.

I still remember feeling daft on having to bloody sing" we shall overcome" or whatever the song was.

My mum came from nearby bishops green

Where should the "time and place" be, if not primary school? Our environment is likely to be the single biggest issue of their lifetimes. Secondary school is far too late.

@Summertime2006 He told me that actually it was for geography and they were all designing t shirts for a climate protest. I was a little taken a back because I thought schools were not suppose to get involved with politics or activism.

Be careful about that, because the majority of people in the UK don't understand the difference between an academic study of X, and actually supporting X.

Germany 1918 - 1939 is on the history curriculum of many schools across the UK. That does not mean that schools are teaching teenagers to become Nazis!

Oh grow up.

My comment was just that the OP says her child told her the news, she doesn't quote the teacher in any way so my point is the child might call it a protest rather than the teacher calling it that.

It takes on average 2,700 litres to make a T-shirt. If a person drinks 3 litres a day, that’s enough drinking water for 900 days.

I was going to say something like this. Plus fashion retail is really wasteful and polluting. A white t cotton t shirt will have been bleached, the cotton will be from somewhere far away. The chance that this child chooses to wear the t shirt that he has decorated until he outgrows it is pretty much nil. We don’t need to save the planet by buying more crap.

As evidenced in this thread - "because the majority of people in the UK don't understand the difference between an academic study of X, and actually supporting X."

Children need to start learning about the climate crisis in a manageable way as soon as possible. It's not 'political' or 'activist', it's a fact that will change the world they have been growing up in into something different and harder.

What age of primary school?

In Reception - yes it's a bit odd.
In Year 5/6 - entirely fine and appropriate.

It's probably a school linking art to geography where they are learning about caring for the planet.

I think it is a great way to teach children how to care for the planet! I remember learning about climate change and environmental issues in primary school and I'm old.
Only thing I would have an issue with is the tshirt, I wouldn't want to buy one specifically but would have no problem with communicating that to the teacher.

We need people to spend money, this forum doesn't quite get that. All art/extra curriculum/school fair means people are buying stuff and with most art/head teacher challenge, the stuff isn't recyclable. Unless we want our primary children just on screens, then there's going to be waste. If the design is on the front, the rest of the t shirt could be recycled.

I’m 62 and I remember making posters about littering as a child. We then put them up in the community.

It could be about the issue itself. It could be that the children learnt about climate change and then brainstormed how they could help. It could be that they were talking about government and democracy and how one small voice can make a difference.

It’s probably not so much about climate change, as it is leaning about how each of us has an impact on the world.

Or, maybe you’ll come home one day next week and find a tiny picket line outside your house because you’ve been wasting electricity and adding to the problem.

Honestly, yes, climate change is the issue of the day, but I can’t find a way to see this as an issue at all. You should be proud of your child for learning about how they can make a difference.

I don’t see climate change as political; it’s not an opinion or judgement. It’s fact. A fact that will affect our children much more than us sadly.

It’s never too early for children to learn to take care of our environment. Ironically, we all know the risks and very few of us make any changes.

Protesting about climate change is a lot easier than actually changing your own lifestyle to be more climate friendly.

But it could have been a paper based project, there is absolutely no need to have parents buy clothing, destined for landfill, purely for a school project.

Agreed

This is true. A friend told me about a mum at her school who took her kids to one of Greta Thunberg’s protests … and the next day flew to Malaysia for a lovely family holiday.

It sounds like an engaging way to teach about a very important subject, and I don’t really see that it’s any different fro
designing a poster or writing a persuasive letter, both of which are very common primary school geography activities. Would you rather your child didn’t learn about climate change?

Agree what a waste of a white T-shirt! Just think of the resources that were wasted!
Because if the T-shirt came home it would binned in a couple of weeks!
What’s wrong with a poster!
I mean the local primary to me everyone drives in! even from a 10 minute walk away!
And park as near the entrance as they can!

Of course you are not being unreasonable. But you are a little late to the party. Primary schools have been political for a long time for example in the way they 'teach' gender ideology and mental health issues. Of course children should not be taught about issues politically, but rather, critically. If a child learns critical thinking skills it can assess all sorts of types of knowledge, where it comes from and how valid and reliable it is. Children should be taught to be independent thinkers and a range of perspectives should be allowed and debated. This is a cornerstone of democracy and freedom as opposed to totalitarianism where we all have to think the same.

A tiny bit of creative thinking from the teacher could have fulfilled the design technology brief - ask parents to bring in a damaged item of clothing that could have been patched/repaired and painted, asked a charity shop for a bag of rags to cut up as fabric scraps to make a banner, ask for a bag of dry household recycling to make posters. It’s lazy and uninspired teaching.

Yes I agree that protest implies politics but I I’m pretty sure it won’t be a protest. I think the OP’s Dc has got the wrong end of the stick.

Ask a charity shop to give them unwashed clothing that is given to the ragman because it's too poor quality, dirty and damaged to be anything but shredded? Or find a mythical item of damaged but not too damaged and won't get a kid teased for having tatty clothing to repair, miraculously happen to use up boxes of food (got to check no nuts or other major allergens were stored in them) or cleaning products (but watch out for allergies), don't forget to tip away the last of the contents so they're wasted, and then produce another collage of rubbish that will definitely go straight in the bin?

Inspired.