To think that 'Cool' is not a suitable thematic topic for ks2 children

[Boggler]

My dd's school has a thematic topic every term for the ks2 children - so basically all the juniors. They take part and previous topics have included the Olympics, world war II, the Romans etc. it works really well and they research topics and really get involved. All great you say well up until dd came home saying that this terms topic is cool, at first I thought it meant cold things environments etc but no apparently it means what's cool and what's not!

I'm really concerned that young children are going to pressure already hard up parents for 'cool' stuff and that it could be divisive - those with cool stuff and those without. It's a recipe for disaster as far as I can see but what do others think AIbu?

YY to all those things...and history and design and technology...

you can pull all sorts into that heading...all really important/interesting

Sounds an ok subject to me, good age too, I am guessing they are using the word 'cool' as the kids relate to it better than 'individualism' or something they are less likey to be interested in.

Are you sure the topic isn't "fashion".

My DS is in KS2 and his topic for the term is fashion. They have to take in their favourite outfit to wear for a show. They will be designing Tshirts. Looking at clothing trends around the world. Looking at pics of their parents at their age and what they were wearing. Types of clothing material such as High Vis stuff and how it works. They will cover all their subjects through this topic and will hopefully find the topic engaging.

boggler you can influence the JLS not-cool vs 1D cool quite easily - just turn up to school wearing a 1D t-shirt, and rope in some other parents . Obvs this would be part of helping the class understand one person's cool is another person's uncool, rather than just knocking a potential future meangirl down a peg or two before she runs the school

No it will be a PSCHE thing , all about everybody's 'cool' is different, and we are all 'speshul' the old 'it's good to be me' shite topic"

Real - Why do you think this is a bad message?

I am 26 and I don't think we did anything about advertising at school until I was 14 and in year 9! We did a fantastic project in English learning about advertising and all the visual/language trickery companies use. It culminated in individual assignments where we had to come up with a traditionally 'uncool' product (I chose deodorising foot spray :o) and brand it and create a poster advert for it using all the tricks we had studied. We then had to write an essay on the tricks we had used and how they would encourage the public to buy the product.

It was really fun (hence I remember it over a decade later!) and although I've never been particularly bothered by fitting in, fashion etc, it was really good to learn more about advertising. I think junior school children would be more than capable of a project like that if they did it in groups perhaps, and would get a lot out of it.

Get off FB and make an appt with the teacher and find out exactly what lessons are planned around the topic.