Hi all. So we have adopted twins (fostered to adopt at 15 months) now age 9 and in year 4.
For some context, we are in a smallish village school and rarely encounter any issues in our largely happy school community. Everyone knows the twins are adopted but obviously not their life story and barring one incident, involving another child, we are treated like any other family which of course we are. Recently, a new teacher to the twins, has started teaching PSHE and there was some clumsy communication around adoption which upset my usually resilient daughter. I obviously addressed it immediately and the school head was great, and proposed some changes which satisfied me, primarily, that we would be given the heads up if adoption was likely to be mentioned in class so we could prepare the kids. Great.
So today I get pulled aside by their main teacher to say they are studying a text where the main character is adopted and it's a bit insensitive/outdated so he is withholding some parts and not using some of the outdated terminology. Great, thank goodness he has some emotional intelligence and has let me know (even if it's after the event) and I can now order my own copy. However, the twins then say that the new teacher is also reading this book to them and that she is not withholding or amending any elements but reading it verbatim and that they have at times felt uncomfortable with the use of "real" to describe the biological parent.
I don't know what to do. Given the last incident was less than 3 weeks ago I cant quite fathom that I'm having to address the same issue with the same member of staff. I can't believe, in this day and age where political correctness is so vigilantly upheld, that such an offensive text remains on the syllabus even!
I'm open to all suggestions about how to proceed. I will be contacting our regional adoption service on Monday and maybe even our MP. I will let DH deal with the school this time as I will blow a gasket.
What would you do?.