My God this story about the class photograph is appalling!

[Needsomebloodyperspective]

Link here.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce5epgp2zdno

Parents given the option to have disabled children removed from their photograph.

Who on Gods green earth thought that was a good idea?!

It really isn't that surprising.

Every parent of a child with complex needs knows that whilst it's disgusting, it isn't surprising.

Bloody hell what horrible world we live in

Not excusing it for one minute but in the article the school refers to ‘complex needs provision’ as if it is maybe a separate class who are generally taught separately.

So maybe it’s a bit like ‘do you want a photo of year 3 and 4 or just year 3’?

That’s the only explanation that is anything other than appalling.

edited to say I hope it does without saying that as a parent if any child was educated alongside my child even for just 10 minutes a week they absolutely should be included in the same photo and I wouldn’t even consider that they might not be.

@PermanentIyExhaustedPigeon
I am so sorry - why people are mean and cruel I do not know.💐

i’m a bit bemused that the school staff allowed two separate photos to be taken, unless the kids with additional needs were photoshopped out of the original photo…

My daughter has autism and was asked to not come in the day of the ofsted visit.

I imagine it’s one of those where the photographer takes photos of little groups and then edits them together in one big photo

It could have been an outrageously idiotic attempt on part of the photographers to use AI. Virtually every industry has been thinking of how they can implement AI and the photographers somehow came up with the insane idea of offering two different versions of the same photo in hopes of increasing their revenue.

The wording of parents having the option of disabled children "removed" from the final photo suggests they didn't take two version of the original image. It sounds like one image where the photographer used generative fill to block out a wheelchair.

That's appalling I hope that she went and you told ofsted of the request.

It's in the DM as well, seem to be the photography company rather than the school, it's quite a big company, dreadful.

The thing that confuses me is why the photographer did this at all...was it as a request from staff? Parents? Was it with staff's knowledge? Surely not but it's an odd thing for a photographer to do. Absolutely appalling, sounds like these children were very much part of the class.

That's appalling I hope that she went and you told ofsted of the request.

i did and I also informed them of the fact that the school suggested my daughter wasn’t autistic just attention seeking due to the breakdown of my relationship with her father.

Absolutely disgraceful 😞
Can't believe how anyone thought this was in any way ok.

there all in the same year but the info we are missing is if there all in the same class
so there would be 2 pictures a class photo and a year photo

Not saying it's okay but I'm going to guess it's because some of the complex needs students maybe find it hard to sit still and straight for the whole time and excluding them results in a 'tidier' photo? That was my first thought when I read the article.

the school refers to ‘complex needs provision’ as if it is maybe a separate class who are generally taught separately.

So maybe it’s a bit like ‘do you want a photo of year 3 and 4 or just year 3’?

As a career-long teacher of severely learning disabled children, I would be infuriated if those kids had been photoshopped out. But I don't think that's what happened. I think it's highly likely that the scenario was as above.

In the other thread about this, it's mentioned that the company regularly takes photos of separate groups and merges them. So I imagine that they took one of the mainstream children, one of the children in the specialist provision, and one merged. Then the parents had the choice of photo.

I would be interested to see the photo before it was edited. It seems such a strange thing to do unless the child was doing something that you’d rather they didn’t do in a photograph, or they were screaming/looking distressed or something.

My dd has a mole on her face and when we got her school photo they had airbrushed it out.

That's horrible. Way to give her a complex about it. Hopefully it didn't affect your DD that way, but some it might.

Hopefully you sent her in anyway?

I assumed it was because some of the children weren’t able to sit still for the photo so it would have had blurry images of movement or whatever.

@Needsomebloodyperspective

All schools teachers are under tremendously stress to fulfil expections criteria ect of Ofstead agency,

Cause of that, having a child having meltdowns or disrupting the classrooms or creating 🤔 any drama's etc,
on ofstead day,
means attention and energy and time is diverted elsewhere,
and unfortunately doesn't reflect well on the school on that particular day..

There was yesterday a mumsnet post about often teachers having to deal with extremely difficult behaviours to manage such as pupils even being violent and how often teachers are attacked ect

The photographer who took my DD nursery photo offered to Photoshop out her birth mark...and then the staff rang me and asked me if I wanted them too! The staff also decided to change her into a 'pretty dress' as I'd sent her in dungarees that day so when I received the photo proofs she wasn't even in her own clothes! New nursery very swiftly after that. Backward arse holes!

What's the problem with that though?

It won't be a separate class...I work in the same authority and the pupils with complex needs will be part of a mainstream class and spend all/some of their time in the classroom. Yes, they may have time in another room but that wouldn't be their class.