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?!

They removed someone in a wheelchair.

There's a daily mail article about it.

We need to stop airbrushing our kids to remove every perceived "inperfection" moles, birth marks, wonky teeth no filters etc. The company has decided that these people don't fit in and removed them. This should be classed as discrimination - and prosecuted. It's supposed to be a record of who was in the class. I support a national boycott of this firm.

@vanillawaffle

Whats wrong with school photo of potentially blurry movement then?

A school photo needs to be look a certain generic standard way,

not an experimental artistically expression of photography L.o.l 😆

No it doesn't. So what there's a kid who moves/rocks and so they look a little blurry. Does that really matter? It's not a photo shoot for a modelling agency

Looking at the report in the press and journal it does appear to be individual children from certain classes. It's horrible and must have taken some effort

I'd have been absolutely murderous if that had happened with my SEN DD. Disgusting.

I imagine Tempest photography will have lost quite a bit of business over this jaw dropping and unacceptable faux pas.

Your lol at the end of your comment (with full stops in for some unknown reason) and then a laughing face has for some reason made me shudder.
Do you really think that having all the children in the class photo is less important having a bit of a blurry photo.
If so I think you need to reassess your priorities.

One thing to point out, the teaching staff will have had nothing to do with this. As a rule you get a message though that it’s class photos Monday next week, you take your class off to wherever the picture is being taken and that is it. Quite often you never even see the photo as it’s all online.

My only thought with this that could make it acceptable would be if there were two classes. Class 3A - mainstream class 30 children and Class 3B - complex needs class 10 children. One photo of 3A, one photo of 3B, one of both.

In my school, we have got an autistic child and we said to her parents if she didn't want to come in, or wanted to leave at any time of the day Otsted came, we would authorise it. We knew she wouldn't cope with the change of schedule and it would really upset her so gave them the option. She used to be violent and kick off then get really upset so wanted to give them the option. But it wasn't because we didn't want her so a bit different.

@OutOfTheHouse that will not have been the case - not how it works in Scotland at all. Children are included in the mainstream class to varying degrees depending on their needs and ability to cope but would definitely be considered part of the class.

@OutOfTheHouse there will have been staff present particularly as there were complex needs children to support but the photographer may well have removed the pupil(s) from the photo without their knowledge later on

Just like the plot of “Wonder”, however that was fiction. Disgusting.

Your attempt to excuse this is as bad as the request to exclude.

Shameful - you and the school.

What change of schedule? There should be no changes when Ofsted comes in.

I don't believe for a second that that was an offer made for the child's sake.

Good grief, my entire school would have been empty for Ofsted if we'd taken that line. Not one of our entire school children with severe and combined needs was affected by Ofsted coming.

Thank you yes. The LOL and emoji threw me I didn't know how to respond

I can’t imagine it’s that surprising for those of us with disabled children. It’s absolutely brutal out there. Be vocal about wanting disabled children included because the ones who don’t are talking for you.

You can see how this photographer felt quite comfortable making this offer. Ableism is rife in society as evidenced by some of the responses on this thread.

This was not a school decision but the decision of the photography firm. Please don't blame teachers for this

I think that they have set up the main class and then brought in the complex provision in last so the photographer has got one shot before they came in. Should not of happened.

I had to move school because of a school that sent ds home with covid symptoms (miraculous disappearing) before governor visits/school trips. Changed the end of year trip to exclude his year. Tried to leave him out of swimming lessons. He has high functioning autism is never violent they just couldn't be bothered with him.

The problem with that is that many parents won't buy the photo if it's blurry. And tempest is in the business of selling photos.
I think that element is fair enough. I've known tempest take ages and ages to try to get the single photo that doesn't have one of the kids looking the wrong way/moving/scowling. The result has to be sellable at the end.

I said this on the other thread, but not all SEN kids are part of the mainstream class - one my goddaughters is in a SEN hub attached to a mainstream school and she has only one or two classes per week in mainstream, the rest of the time she is taught in the hub. I remember one year her mum had two school pics: one of her and her cohort from the hub and one with the whole year group - so I assume the mainstream year group also had a photo without the kids from the hub. So there were likely three photos available 1) hub kids 2) mainstream class and 3) whole year group.

So it was probably something along those lines rather than for more sinister reasons - as what possible motivation would the photographer have for doing that otherwise, and how would he/she even know who were the kids with complex needs, and how would they have been separated from the other kids without any teachers noticing?

Believe what you want, we always had her best interests at heart.
Change of schedule - lots of different people in the school observing lessons etc. You will be pleased to hear she stayed all day and coped with it but her parents appreciated the offer of a way out if she got overwhelmed.

@OolongTeaDrinker but that's not how it works here. Yes, there may be pupils who spend significant amounts of time in a base/hub/other classroom but they will still be part of P5M or whatever the mainstream class is called. They will not have 'their own complex needs class' that is not inclusion!

@cerisepanther73

Maybe ofsted needs to see the reality and feed back. They know support is not only thin on the ground but also that teachers and ta have zero training on people with autism

I don't care. The ofsted inspection should be of the school as a whole. You can't just ask kids to stay at home because they have extra needs.

Ahh we are in England - I didn't realise it was not the same set up in Scotland. I know it's not super common here either; my friend really battled to get her daughter into the school with the SEN hub and as far as I know it's the only one in our area.