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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask if this is a 'thing' in Y6 age group

37 replies

mixedpeel · 19/12/2013 16:35

DS had a fun Christmas quiz today, but his team did not get their sheet marked as a punishment for their choice of team name. They were the Blue Babies, and apparently the teacher took them aside and explained that there is a horror film where if you say blue babies three times something unpleasant happens. There was also a team called Candymen, who also got the same talk. Hmm

Um. Can I ask the teacher what the hell he's thinking of, planting ideas into a team of children where at worst maybe one child has vaguely heard of something dodgy, and now they are all wondering what this film is or am I being massively naive and actually DS knows a lot more than he's letting on?

I remember all sorts of tripe flying round the playground at school, but am wondering why this teacher is twitchy around the blue babies thing.

OP posts:
Phaush · 19/12/2013 16:37

Well they would have got away with it in my class as neither reference means anything to me :)

Sounds a bit daft of the teacher. Did (s)he imagine the film was real?

NigellasDealer · 19/12/2013 16:39

never heard of 'blue babies' or 'candymen' and am not going to google.
maybe the teacher is a bit sick and into weird movies and projecting that onto the children?
ok i just asked the daughter who is 14 and she never heard of either of these either. silly me now she wants to know what they are....

EdithWeston · 19/12/2013 16:40

No idea!

I think it's wrong, though, because of blue baby syndrome. I wouldn't expect Y6 to know about that (and woud expect a teacher to let it be).

I would think it appallingly tasteless if an adult used it in any non-medical context.

BlingBang · 19/12/2013 16:40

Is it tripe? I'Ve still never been able to look in the mirror and say Candyman three times!

SomethingkindaOod · 19/12/2013 16:42

The teacher told a group of year 6 children about 2 horror films? That was clever...
The teacher was being U, if the children had called themselves something rude then fine, pull them up on it but if he wanted them to be called something without any link to anything else he should have checked the names and asked them to change it before the quiz.
We used to go into the girls toilets and say 'bloody Mary' in front of the mirror when I was in year 6 Grin

ilovesmurfs · 19/12/2013 16:43

Have hear dof candyman not blue babies!

Teacher being a bit Ott imo, why not jist ask them to change the name?

Foxeym · 19/12/2013 16:43

I've seen Candyman and I'm a bit of a horror movie buff and have never heard of a movie called blue babies??

NotAnotherStuffedTurkey · 19/12/2013 16:44

I would automatically have thought of the babies of Mumsnetters who have accidentally been dyed blue in various household misadventures.

Catsnotrats · 19/12/2013 16:45

It may be that there is a bit of hysteria in the year group being whipped up in the playground after a few children have watched horror films and then repeating and embellishing it to their peers. These sort of things happen from time to time in schools, and when it does you need to clamp down on it hard, as while year 6 can generally handle it, it gets spread to younger children who get incredibly scared by it all.

The classic is Bloody Mary in the school toilets, and I have experienced younger children being too scared to use them after hearing the story.

overmydeadbody · 19/12/2013 16:47

The teacher was BU.

They were just quiz names. What did the teacehr think would happen?

Very strange.

MabelSideswipe · 19/12/2013 16:47

Talking about horror films seems to be a bit of a thing in my Ds1's friendship group. He claims one of the boys has a much older sibling who lets him watch films like 'Saw'. I doubt very much it is true but these films do seem to fascinate them just because they are not allowed to watch them.

But the teacher should have ignored the names as they are not offensive without the connotations. You now know the teacher likes crappy horror films though.

DingDongUriGelleryOnHigh · 19/12/2013 16:48

He's an idiot. Even if the kids were vaguely aware of such films, the teacher has now shown he is bothered by it. That's a sign of weakness. He should have just ignored completely.

Also, he shouldn't ask kids to come up with their own team names and then tell them off at all, and why did he wait til AFTER the quiz had been played?

Knobhead.

SomethingkindaOod · 19/12/2013 16:48

I can only find one film that might be what he means by blue babies and it's about the first surgery on a child with blue baby syndrome btw.
There's a horror film called Baby Blue but I'm not sure that's the one he meant.
I've never been sure if Candyman is a horror film, I mean it's scary but it's really sad.

storminabuttercup · 19/12/2013 16:50

But why did they choose that name? Am I missing something?

BrownSauceSandwich · 19/12/2013 16:50

It all sounds a bit improbable to me. If two teams came up with these team names, it sounds likely that it was an in-joke shared by several among the class. And if the teacher immediately hit on the connection, it's probably because they've been pissing him off for weeks, running round saying it to wind up their more superstitious peers, and have already been bollocked for it. Now, even if that's the case, your son may well be completely oblivious. On the other hand, he might just be editing a bit. Wink

curlew · 19/12/2013 16:50

Why did they choose those names? How on earth would you come up with them unless you knew there was a connotation of some sort?

NigellasDealer · 19/12/2013 16:51

^^ sandwich speaks sense.

BohemianGirl · 19/12/2013 16:51

Blue Babies is the old fashioned term for Haemolyetic Rhesus Disease - these babies often died (my aunt lost something like 11 pregnancies because of this).

However I wouldnt expect a child to be in anyway understanding of the term. Actually I doubt anyone under 40 knows the term

Original poster
mixedpeel · 19/12/2013 16:54

Ok, catsnotrats, that makes a bit more sense. Tbh another team being Candymen (sic, by the way, so they're safe enough even if they do try the saying it three times thing!), did make me think that there must be something going round the playground.

I really hope there is a good reason, but this teacher has form on finding ways to spoil what should be 'nice' things. I did wonder if he isn't a bit guilty of jumping to conclusions about whether all the children involved have much of a clue about why it's 'bad', but with the way things spread round the playground perhaps that is indeed naive of me. Still unsure if his reaction (making it such a big deal) may have piqued more interest rather than put it to bed, though.

OP posts:
Heartbrokenmum73 · 19/12/2013 16:55

I know Candyman (the film led to the urban myth) but doubt my Y7 daughter does. When she was in Y5/6, the Bloody Mary thing did the rounds in her year group, due to one spoilt little madam girl who thought it was funny to tell stories (and give nightmares) to the other girls in the class about ghosts and hauntings. She reckoned Henry VIII was a ghost in their school Confused

Don't know about any horror film about blue babies.

Am also wondering where the names came from. It does sound like they've got from somewhere...unpleasant though.

SomethingkindaOod · 19/12/2013 16:55

I bet blue babies is a new version of Bloody Mary.
Some of them might know of the Candyman film, children that age have a fascination with weird things and it only takes one child allowed to see something inappropriate for it to spread like wildfire round the playground (bitter experience speaking here). The problem is that the rest of the class will now be wondering what it is and probably have good access to the internet.

juniper9 · 19/12/2013 16:57

I think the kids were trying it on, and pushing the boundaries so I agree with the teacher, although it's not a great idea to advertise the fact they're horror films.

The two names are not random- both groups have purposefully named their groups after the films, probably hoping the teacher wouldn't know and that they could have a laugh at their expense.

schmee · 19/12/2013 16:58

There is an urban legend about saying baby blue blue baby 13 times in front of a mirror.

It sounds like some of the children knew what the children were doing when they named the teams so I think the teacher was right to show them he understood the "in-joke"

SomethingkindaOod · 19/12/2013 16:58

Bohemiangirl I'm just a shade under 40 and do know but only because it's happened in my family and my bloods were analysed constantly during pregnancy.

overthemill · 19/12/2013 17:00

Stupid teacher. If you let the groups choose names you walk around and check. If wholly unsuitable you say ' that's a bit too silly even at Christmas' and get them to change it. Guessing he/she was spending time doing data entries instead of supervising or even teaching...