To think this was a bit tactless of the teacher

[callherwillow]

The teacher in question referred to friends daughter (Year 4) as 'bonny'. I realise that there are areas of the country where this is just a compliment without any other connotations but here it essentially means 'fat.'

The friends DD was a few minutes late due to helping set up the assembly and upon entering had gone to sit with her friends and was stopped by the teacher who tried to steer her to the year 6s and when she politely explained she was in year 4 the teacher commented (in a whole school assembly where the children could all hear her) 'well, you are a very bonny girl for year 4, aren't you?'

Not the teachers finest hour, I don't think?

We have bonny babies etc here, "bonny" where i live means really beautiful, just to throw into the different meanings. I'm very close to Scotland but not in it

This will never end, will it

Not until you admit that you think fat people are always unhealthy and unattractive, OP, and that "bonny" is always therefore used as a veiled insult.

"She is tall and rather portly. 'Solid' would be how my friend would describe her."

Sounds like you're one of the 98% of uk parents who have overweight kids who don't recognise that there's a problem. here Maybe thats why the teacher's innocent comment upset you.

354 messages in this thread so far. Is it difficult to see this on some phones? I just don't get why somebody would answer only the OP on a thread this long and not stop to consider that their point might already have been made. If you don't have time to skim through it, you don't have time to post.

As for the extraordinary pigheadedness of the dozens and dozens of people who've never heard bonny in this sense and are therefore able to say that it's never, ever, anywhere been used in the OP's sense - well, words fail me.

And then we come to those who glance at the OP and don't read it properly. The OP is not the mother of the child concerned. It's her friend's child, as stated in the first line of the OP.

" If you don't have time to skim through it, you don't have time to post."

Who are you? My mum?

Mini

I appreciate reading threads that are many pages long is sometimes rather arduous (although one does then wonder why someone bothers replying at all: as Gasp saliently pointed out, your point will almost certainly have been made multiple times before) but in my OP I say it is my friends daughter.

I suspect you read a sentence or two and pounced in glee to upset someone. Didn't you?

In that case getting offended on behalf of a friend's child is even more bizarre.

Have you got a grudge against this teacher or something?

There is absolutely no need whatsoever to read the whole of such a trivial thread.

Poor teachers, so often getting attacked and criticised from every angle! Never heard of Bobby meaning anything than big and healthy and happy. I'm sure the teacher didn't mean fat, would t make sense in the sentence, and no teacher I've ever met would say something like that!

I always thought that bonny was like plump? Maybe I'm wrong, not a very common word in Sussex .
I wouldn't really be offended though. It's not like the teacher actually said. Well aren't you fat!

I'm reading this thread having spent the afternoon on the school playing field watching some very very overweight primary school children struggle through sports day without keeling over. :-( I worry that my ds needs to lose some lbs (and am working to improve his diet and activity levels) but he looked like a twiglet in comparison to many of the other children.

IMO that's the crime - that so many children are overweight and suffering from it and our response is to pretend not to notice and to become horribly over sensitive to anything which indicates that someone may have noticed a child's poor physical condition.

Some of the children I saw today were struggling to run 70 metres. :-(

It's all about context. In my area bonny only has a positive meaning but since it means fat in your area and the teacher was essentially saying that the child looks older because she is "bonny" it does sound like she was saying she is a big girl. Not very nice. I think the teacher was a bit embarrassed that she tried to put the girl with the wrong year group and by trying to laugh it off she just dug herself in deeper!

The wound up part is speculation on your part mini

I'm not wound up at all - unless you honestly think fleetingly thinking a comment lacked tact is being wound up, which is even odder to me than you getting on your soapbox about this matter given that you've said two of your children are overweight (and I'm aware of issues with your daughter.)

You're clearly very animated about it though OP - enough to start a thread and follow it through answering repeatedly.

Yes - happy to get my soapbox out about childhood obesity. I think it's very sad and worrying and I'm doing everything I can as a parent to encourage my own children to be more active and to make healthier food choices (although I've got bugger all control over 16 year old dd except in so far as not buying cakes, crisps etc and cooking healthy family meals. Can't stop her spending her own money on crappy food or make her exercise).

I just wish other parents weren't so rabidly over sensitive about it or completely oblivious to the problem when it's standing underneath their nose

Might manage to find a way forward if there was more openness about the subject.

trevortrevor I'm always going to visualise him now!!

I feel like I fallen into a worm hole!

Ps. People are forever telling my 7 yr old DS he's v small for his age. Annoying to have attention drawn to it all the time.

I also think it's telling that you feel there's something wrong about someone with an overweight child speaking out in support of more action on childhood obesity generally.

Almost like you having a little poke: "well you've got overweight kids so what right have you got to comment about childhood obesity"

Should those of us who are experiencing the problem and trying to address it in our own families keep our mouths shut on the subject? Out of shame maybe?

You clearly think being overweight is shaming.

Are you sure you don't read The Daily Mail, NeverbuytheDailyMail? I think you'd enjoy it.

*Where has that list suddenly come from acasualobserver? I've seen it posted a few times the past few days!

I made it up although another poster helped me by suggesting MI5 and the Pope.*

It needs headteacher before governors and then God above the Queen. Perfect.

I wonder why every obtuse poster has made her way to this thread?

Mini, it's not a swipe, I'm just genuinely a bit baffled. There are other issues with friends daughter, I won't go into them now of course but be wary of assuming all chubby kids are so because of bad parenting.

This is ridiculous. You are projecting onto the teacher. Bonnie in this context appears most likely as healthy and strapping. I'd be careful your neurosis are not carried onto your daughter. First world problem and too much naval gazing.

"it does sound like she was saying she is a big girl. Not very nice."

Why is it not nice to briefly acknowledge that a child is big? When the child is big? What's wrong with being 'big' that it becomes an offence to notice it?