to think that out of four houses in a school, two could carry the names of women and they needn't all be white?

[DrSeuss]

The secondary school I teach in is in one of the least diverse areas of Britain. Folk here can be very insular. Nice but insular. The area has one of the lowest take ups of Languages in the country. For some, a trip to the city five miles away is a big adventure. You get the idea.

Our school needed four new names for its four new houses. We now have three dead white males and one dead white female as names. None of them is in themselves objectionable and they have to be dead so as to avoid a situation where a house winds up carrying the name of someone we would rather it did not.

However, three men, one woman? All white? Surely we can split the genders two and two and surely we can have someone who wasn't a WASP?

SomethingNarstyInTheWoodshed DD's school is to have students displaying house colour by means of a simple pin badge on the lapel of the blazer.

But does your school have some sort of "theme" for choosing these people? E.g. the school I attended used historical figures who had some connection with the area in which we lived, e.g. John Wesley, Isaac Newton. If they are choosing a "dead" person so as to be uncontroversial, and if the theme is for people who are local or at least from this country, then you are looking at vaguely historical figures who will almost inevitably be white and male.

My DD goes to a RC school and they choose former cardinals so not much chance of a lady popping up there!

If they have historical names I can't see how they wouldn't be any thing other than white, if they have picked British historical figures from hundreds of years ago thats what they were.

Always wondered what a WASP was?

They had pin badges to start with too. Lost 4 in a week and haven't bought another since.

My DD's school has earth, air, fire and water. Can't possibly be controversial.

Our school didn't stick with dead people for house names, one of them is Armstrong (as in Lance not Neil), oops.

I'm in the north east too. You are right, it is very very white. There was not a single ethnic minority at my high school of 2000 plus when I was growing up and as far as I know my daughter's first school is still all white today.

I agree with your comments about women and other races but when houses are named after founders etc.. you can't change history.

We get round it here as all our houses are named after local place names therefore there is never any argument. You might want to raise this as an option.

WASP is white anglo saxon protestant. Pretty much sums up virtually everyone in my neck of the woods.

WHY oh why does bloody everything around here be centered on sexism ???? It bloody doesn't matter! Rabid feminists have turned me into rabid anti-feminist.
If someone 'suggested' 'a female and not necessarily white' I would go out of my way to vote for George Washington. Or similar dead white man.
Drives me blooooody insane.

AmberLeaf

Heres two, if you google, it won't take you long to find any more.

^www.100greatblackbritons.com/bios/ignatious_sancho.html^

^www.100greatblackbritons.com/bios/samuel_coleridge-taylor.html^

That's the list which has Philippa of Hainault on it, isn't it? Who's included on the basis that one of her great-great grandmothers was the issue of one of the Khans? And every other relative was white and European? That's enough to make her 'black', is it? Not to mention that she can't be British because Britain didn't exist then.

It would be a lot easier to name the houses after something less controversial than actual people. At my school they were named after nearby mountains. Well, hills, I suppose, since we're not exactly in the Alps. But anyway, it meant there was no debate along the lines of 'what? I can't believe a house is called XXXX, that mountain hasn't made nearly as big a contribution to the landscape as YYYY', they were just greeted with a bemused shrug instead. In fact, the last I heard, my old school had done away with houses altogether.

Oh I agree, rollmops.

Wouldn't it be great if choosing well-known historical figures came out randomly about 50/50 male/female, like the population? Instead of everything around here being centred on sexism for centuries.

Never mind. We don't have to keep that up.

If you're in the NE, what about Grace Darling?

My son's norfolk school has Norman's, Romans, Saxons and Vikings.
So lots and lots of dead men and women

Good point - my second school's houses were named geographically, for points on the compass and local topography. My brother's school houses were named for the roads that bordered the school.

Seriously, does it bloody matter!? If that's all you've got to get excited about.......

I doubt it is all the OP has to get excited about. It's probably just the bit she chose to post about this morning on a chat site.

If we are only doing third world debt and life threatening illness then you should probably shout at everyone in 'sleb twaddle' for starters.

Fwiw you sound way more hysterical than the op does.

Actually there is a thread about sucking air into your vagina and farting it out. Maybe that should be first?

My old school, the houses were named after abbeys. the kids school - it's steam locomotives which is quite cool.

RVPisnomore

Seriously, does it bloody matter!? If that's all you've got to get excited about.......

Of course it doesn't matter. But important causes like this are how you prove your superior leftie credentials on Mumsnet. "Wow, look at the ignorant white people failing to celebrate diversity!" shouts the OP. Muttering from the peanut gallery by the Guardian-reading latte-sippers of Brighton and Camden. Everyone agrees that ordinary people are stupid and thick unless they live down the road from an Ethiopian basketwork collective. Then it's straight on to pick up Jocasta and Tristram from the comprehensive school that doesn't select by ability (because that would be elitist) but only on the basis that you can afford a million pound house in the catchment area.

Oh where's that pag?
I used to be able to

Wilding-Davison, Collingwood, Stephenson, Grey would be justifiable North East choices, but still only one woman and all WASP. But so what? That is the store of the area. It isn't really diverse.

flatpackhamster I think I love you!

I went to a fete a couple of weeks where the Punch & Judy show had a hilarious blacked-up puppet - not black, blacked-up. Am I not allowed to about that either?