is this right? year 6 'spoofed' about burglars .....

[wink1970]

My DSD just told me that my grandson came home from school during the week & told her his class (age 8) had all been lined up after assembly and told their classroom had been burgled overnight, trashed, and some of their things stolen.

They were then led to said trashed room, and asked to identify missing belongings & then talk about their feelings about this - cue much hugging and crying apparently - only to be told 20 mins later that this was a 'joke', a staged scene, and that the subject of their homework this weekend is to write about how they felt.

I'm aghast! is this normal teaching? She did ring the school to check and it's true, the school are planning a number of such 'jokes' including an "alien invasion" in the school grounds next month, all in the name of 'creative writing'.

thoughts please ?

I'm a teacher and I have to say this sounds horrible. The reason we teachers spend so long preparing a nice classroom in the holidays is so children feel relaxed, safe and happy to learn... destroying that for one series of lessons seems irresponsible.

Whilst on teaching practice I observed a teacher delivering a lesson on persuasive writing by telling the children that the council was going to build a shop on their playing field. The children were outraged and then oddly deflated when the teacher came clean at the end of the lesson. She explained to me that sometimes you have to fib in order to prompt enough reaction for the children to write well. With all the genuine injustice in the world, making this sort of thing up seemed odd to me.

I have achieved a similar "dramatic" effect with infants by printing puppy/dinosaur/tiger feet all over the classroom. Thus creating excitement, speculation and lovely imaginative drawings and stories.

They knew it was fake but the thing which was disturbing was the speed at which the boys were able to switch from normal lads into utter horrors.

And though they knew it was fake, it was still upsetting I think. I remember the teacher almost selected me...to be one of the girls...and then he changed his mind as I had a sprained ankle.

It WAS full on but none of the girls was damaged by the experience...

there's been a burglary and we want you kids to investigate... come on the kids KNOW it's not real - both of my big girls did this in their time - had no impact what so ever even on my younger one who has anxiety issues

chill

I suppose if you have the kind of kids who get it immediately, you will think its obvious, but not all kids are like that. Some are very literal-minded and some take it on board very seriously that what the teacher says is true.

Plus as yellow and other posters have described, they often do believe it. It's no god just saying "of course they don't" when demonstrably some do.

I've never heard of this but just asked ds1 because I remember him writing about alien invasions in year 3. He said the teachers told them it was real but he hadn't believed them.

When I was in primary school, year 4 I believe we were told we were going for an injection after lunch. Half if us were terrified. It was an April fools joke

At secondary my friends English teacher hid in the cupboard for nearly a whole lesson to see what happened as an introduction to Lord of the Flies

Just lol at that teacher wittier!

Our school did the burglary thing-but not in a scary way.The y made a big thing about some 'presents that had been given to the school and were left in the hallway to be opened the next day.the next day they were told the parcels had been stolemn and the children went round the village (with and adult) and interveiwed villagers who had been primed eg shopkeeper , caretaker, pub landlord etc and then had to work out who dunnit! They thought it was great fun.many of the brighter ones cottoned on that it was a hoax pretty quickly but were persuaded not to spill the beans and I think they enjpyed it but felt duped at the end.
On balance I don't like it, it is dishonest!

I think it's a stupid thing to do regardless of the age of the kids.

I run a lunchtime science club for year 6. This term we've been doing forensic science, so I arranged for the head of year to be killed by one of the other form teachers and we're analysing evidence collected to try and find out who dunnit.

They we're worried, my murder victim had been teaching some of them maths half an hour before! :)

argh! they weren't worried!

no year 6 child was at all upset over the 'death' of the head of year!

Been a teacher all my working life. I once had a student teacher attached to my class who proposed a series of lessons where half the class (yr 4) were to be treated as subordinate slaves by the other half (Romans topic) every afternoon for a week. They were to prostrate themselves on the floor in front of their 'masters', ordered about, shoved around and spoken to in a demeaning way etc. I vetoed it as it would have become far too real and encourage bullying, even violence. He was very cross and felt it would bring home to them what slavery might be like. The problem is that children of this age are still at the imaginative, credulous stage and can get carried away with a dramatic scenario which then gets totally out of hand. Creative writing is a super thing to teach (my favourite activity as a teacher) but one has to use Common Sense with young, vulnerable minds.

ghostyslovesheep where does it say "there's been a burglary and we want you kids to investigate" ?

The OP said "asked to identify missing belongings". What does it say on the thread you are reading?

I think the idea was imaginative, but to carry it out without saying it was a spoof was irresponsible and abusive.