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?!

Well I think that parents who won't buy a photo because one child is a little blurry should look at themselves and think why that child is blurry and deal with it.

They were in a wheelchair.. its quite obvious

And....? Are you suggesting removing children who might exhibit challenging behaviour from a school is reasonable in an Ofsted inspection?
It absolutely is not- apart from being illegal and against Ofsted rules.

It reminded me of the film 'Wonder' where the awful parents of the class bully airbrush the boy with a facial condition out of the class photo - which at the time I saw as a deliberately over-the-top plot device to emphasise that the bullying behaviour had emanated from the parents. I didn't think it was something that would happen in real life. Awful.

This company have done something that discriminates against a group of children. That's it.

But that's the whole point. Ofsted can see how a school respond to this child's needs, and the others in the class, in real time.

You are being disingenuous to suggest this was for the child's benefit. It's shameful.

We may well agree on that, but the reality is that they won't, any more than they'd frame a picture that they took that was blurry.

These photos are stupidly expensive, so people wasn't them to be at least in focus. I don't think that's entirely unreasonable.

A good photographer should be able to work around that ,my son has severe autism and learning disabilities his special school send me photos of him every day they are not photographers, they are always of him smiling and laughing and completely natural.

Yep.

I’ve never liked tempest and their cornering of the school photo market. Somehow this doesn’t surprise me. They don’t care about the kids and their memories about school, it’s just about extorting money from parents, as this has shown.

The fact that they were comfortable enough to send that email and demonstrate to all the parents in that school that they view children with visible additional needs as deletion worthy is just horrible.

As the parent of two DCs with additional needs, I'm obviously saddened and disgusted. It smacks of a feeling that these children are the rogue elements, or the nasty kids.

In our experience, it's quite the opposite and my DS has faced abuse from peers for his disabilities. Some of the abusive things he's been called- especially during covid- could only come from parents with a disgustingly backward attitude towards SEN.

Am I surprised by this company doing this? No, sadly not. We like to think we live in a far more inclusive society but there's still a section who harbour the same outdated views. This just highlights it.

Also, I would agree with the mum who now wanders who, if any, bought the copy that erased her DD before the link was removed. You'd always wander wouldn't you?

There was an interview with the mother of one of the children removed from the photo on the Scottish news last night. The girl was a part of the full class, it wasn’t a composite class where you had the option of P1a, P1b or both together. They photoshopped her daughter out and possibly other children as well. The mother was devastated and watching her interview was incredibly moving. She was also very clear that the school had no idea it had happened. Tempest have had their contract with that school cancelled and I hope others follow suit.

I would be interested to hear how many parents selected the edited photo.

I got great photos in my class of my complex pupils. But individually or in tiny groups in their normal activities.

We entirely gave up on tempest style photos though. It's an entirely different kettle of fish getting any number of our children sitting still on benches set up on the way the photographer wanted, in the hall! It's an entirely UNnatural situation, and the kids just couldn't deal with it. We had staff trying to position children, then trying to dash out of the picture in time. It was madness, and not worth upsetting the children over.

You didn't do it in the interests of the child did you ?
You did it so ofsted wouldn't see any struggles school might have with the child's behaviour 🙄

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/24218942.asn-pupils-removed-aberdeenshire-class-photos/

This article makes it clear it was individual children excluded not whole separate classes. There are other articles that state more than one class was impacted as well. I can't think how they thought this was a good idea

I think I get where you're coming from.

It wasn't a case of 1 child being blurry the link was sent with a no complex needs option. Also in this day and age with technology blurred elements can be edited.

I know. My post was in response to a hypothetical situation.

What as in it was one photo and they actually removed them digitally from the photo? This is ridiculous. This is what happens when people get obsessed with airbrushing and filters. First they came for the spots and stray hairs, now they are removing WHOLE people.

Well said. So much exceptance at face value but but behind closed doors there's very little if any tolerance of SEN children. These kids grow up so does the tolerance just come when they are no longer in your kids classes but in society? Bollocks does it.

Part of me keeps thinking this must have been blown out of proportion somehow and there must be a misunderstanding that hasn’t been reported. I’ve been accused of disability discrimination before, and I was horrified because I hadn’t even been informed the child was disabled. Honestly, I can’t think of what the misunderstanding could be though?

Regardless, Tempest will say it was the actions of this one photographer and not their company policy, and they will sack him and move on.

@vanillawaffle

It would not look to a proffessional expected standard of criteria if their was any blurriness of school photographs
and someone or others would sooner or later complain about that school group photo graph standard not being as good as it used to be,

would obviously reflect look below expected standards,
for that particular proffessional photography company hired to reflect whichever schools has chosen this photographer...

When you clicked the link to order the photos there were two options - one with all the kids and one with the ‘complex needs’ (which is I think how it was put) kids removed

Sorry but we know this child really well and she was on a reduced timetable already due to finding school overwhelming. We know her triggers and her care plan is to avoid them where possible for her own safety and wellbeing.
But you carry on telling me l am wrong if it makes you feel better.
We accommodate her needs 100% of the time, to the detriment of the other children sometimes as it goes, so flame me all you want but her mum and dad absolutely love our school as does she.