To want heads on platters? Utterly inappropriate school assembly

[Renarde1975]

This is a fucking corker. I am fuming but I'd like the hive minds' view.

At DS assembly today. Topic is 'Evacuation: WW2'. All good. Actually, they've done a great job and it's really excellent. Then this.

Towards the end, Christine Aguilera's 'Candyman' comes on. I'm watching open mouthed. I still cannot believe it.

MN: let me refresh you on the 'choicest' lyrics.

He's a one stop shop, makes the panties drop

He took me to the Spider club on Hollywood and Vine
We drank champagne, and we danced all night

He's a one stop shop, makes my cherry pop

And no, MN - this was NOT the radio edit.

And then to cap it all off for some inexplicable reason we are treated to two renditions of Don't Stop Believin' by Journey

A singer in a smoky room
A smell of wine and cheap perfume
For a smile they can share the night
It goes on and on, and on, and on

WTAF? Did I smoke crack this morning and enter into a parallel dimension? I am a teacher, that another member of my profession could fuck up so royally is just, wow.

I don't want my nine year old son to be singing this in a school assembly, or listening to words that objectify women and glorify alcohol. Turns out the kids were practicing the dance moves to Candyman for three weeks!

I cringe now for the teachers actually 😳😂

As a young child, if I didn't understand something in a book I was reading or a song I was listening to, I'd look it up. In those days, I might not have been able to find out what 'cherry popping' meant. Thats not the case these days though.

I think your reaction is over the top.. Majourity of children don’t understand the meanings behind the words and making a deal of it is just going to make them aware. I’m so glad my parents were relaxed about this sort of stuff, Because they didn’t react we didn’t even think to look into the meaning of what we were singing or watching.

I remember being at my neighbours and dancing around to I’m horny, horny horny horny..

Don’t know why but this threads reminded me of a classic that all kids loved at the time:

“Honey came in and she caught me red-handed
Creeping with the girl next door
Picture this we were both butt naked
Banging on the bathroom floor
How could I forget that I had
Given her an extra key
All this time she was standing there
She never took her eyes off me”

• Shaggy - It Wasn’t Me (2000)

"Is allowed watch inappropriate thing's for her age" You're a shit parent then

This reminds me of the primary school that decided the lunchtime supervisors could choose the music to be played during lunch until the Head teacher walked past to hear the whole hall singing, 'I wanna have sex on the beach!

Just thinking about songs like this from my childhood.

Sweat by Inner Circle
Ebeneezer Goode by The Shamen
Push It by Salt n Pepa

We would just sing along without knowledge about what the song was really about.

Pissing myself laughing @OP ... You sound like the librarian at my old high school ... Just blumes forever banned as it was filth ... However Shirley Conrans shagfest Lace was available ...do you have a matching skirt and blouse OP ??? Point is kids ain't listening and candyman defo has that Glenn Miller vibe

Perhaps they should have played some historically accurate George Formby.

Forget the lyrical content, just picking such upbeat irrelevant songs is a bit disrespectful to WW2 generally. I dread to imagine what they'd choose for a play about the Holocaust or something.

I agree with the OP about this matter. The words are totally inappropriate for junior school aged children and as well as revealing her fellow teacher’s lack of judgement about suitability they reveal her/his confusion about WW2.

This sort of thing is very important. I went without when I was working and my DH and I spent every last penny on private junior education to avoid this sort of thing for our children. The teachers and the other parents supported a more traditional and classical approach to music and assemblies.

This thread is interesting, particularly the posts which claim that the children aren't listening to the words/don't understand the words so that's ok then?

What the fuck is wrong with people. On the one hand we have misogynistic songs being used for primary school children which make a mockery of the 'consent' issue that so many responsible adults are trying to teach our young people. On the other we seem to be condoning primary school children singing/dancing to songs with lyrics about big penises and anal sex because they're deemed as good songs and the kids don't understand. One day they will understand, and they've already been taught it's acceptable and so the cycle continues.

I don't think it's appropriate when there are so many decent alternatives to use instead. Even if the school had used just the music without the lyrics that would have been better, but who actually wants to see their kids dancing to lyrics like that?

Ed Sheehan’s A-Team playing at the school disco.

OP- totally with you. I work in primary schools doing music/singing and am paranoid about song lyrics! Also, as others, feel that school should offer (most of the time) an alternative to pop culture. Kids performing to sexualised lyrics is gross, whether they understand them or not. The latter is probably worse as it contrasts so sharply with their innocence. Says more about the teacher's lack of research/imagination. At a crappy local primary they once did a kind of tableau of different decades from the 20th century. To represent the 1980s a friend's dd was told to dress as - Axl Rose (sp??). Teacher obviously couldnt think of another public figure from that decade.
I'd be VERY interested to hear what school say if you bring it up - do tell. I would have complained as a parent, btw.

I dread to imagine what they'd choose for a play about the Holocaust or something.

Why does The Producers suddenly come to mind?

Some of the PP on here are properly making me chortle. One saying I cannot hold the moral highground because my language is fucking appalling. Yes dear; I totally drop the C bomb in front of the Year 8's. In fact, if a lesson goes by and I havn't said 'twat' once, I personally take it as a professional failure on my part FFS.

Coupled with the fact that I must be some pearl clutching, twinset wearing prude to even want to question the topic. In point of fact margesimpson, I am a lifestyle Dominatrix. I write about BDSM and kink plus extremely graphic dark BDSM erotica. My other 'sideline'' is NPD abuse.

However, I do have a pretty sound 'appropriate' filter. Which I can see in some posters appears to be very sadly lacking. To the poster who says she rarely 'policies' what her children watch beggars fucking belief tbh.

Before I turned to the dark side, I was a submissive (many of us do turn and for good reason). I had my consent violated on multiple occasions by men who damn well knew what my limits were. They just didn't care. So, to my mind, the 'panties' line is bad enough but it's actually the consent and misogynistic tone of the whole song (which others have also pointed out) is the real problem here.

In an educational setting; I don't want my child exposed to that. It's bad enough in the wider world. If we don't get it right for them, what hope do we have as a society?

I don't know how many people are aware of a growing movement called the Incels? These are men that cannot get a woman to have sex with them so they are lobbying the US government to force women by law to have sex with them. How long do you think before groups like that begin to spread here (if it hasn't already?).

There is some hope. I am a teacher but I choose not to teach for other reasons (utterly psychotic senior management) but I once had to teach sex ed. I was dreading it, you never know what the little darlings are going to ask.

Because of the fact that I write about consent a lot, I questioned the 7s on what they knew. To my very pleasant surprise, someone had obviously done a good job somewhere as they were utterly up to speed and displayed a very sound grasp.

You know what they really wanted to learn about? Transgenderism. They were fascinated and I received multiple requests to go into that.

Is this the point where I drip feed that actually, this is a CoE school? I think it might be, actually

My friend did an assembly to her year group (year 10 at the time) and it was a YouTube video of something. Completely harmless and relevant.

It stopped at the end and she started talking...then sort of automatically went onto another one which had some horrific loud sex scene. Never seen anyone run back to a laptop as fast to stop it.

Luckily no complaints.

Oblahdeeoblahdoe

Those dinner ladies; were they some of the posters in this thread by any chance?

kitnkaboodle I will. I'm going to have a quiet word with the teacher tomorrow.

Oh God. You're one of THOSE parents. Poor school.

Op I do agree with you, teachers should be checking the lyrics first. It's absolutely worth raising with them for future assemblies to assure it won't happen again. I don't think it's worth expecting heads to roll.

A school assembly that ends with a song ‘He's a one stop shop, makes the panties drop’? A school assembly?

Really?

Thick teachers. Thick parents.

Oh God. You're one of THOSE parents. Poor school.
Really?!

As a teacher I would say it's basic common sense that a song about sex isn't for a primary assembly. There's nothing 'that parent' about it.
The OP has already accepted there was some hyperbole in their intiial posts. Their objection to the song is totally reasonable.

Hmmm, this does sound like a case of bad judgement. A quiet word would be fine.

I think people were a bit bemused by the ‘heads on platters’. I’m quite disappointed as a teacher you are perpetuating the abuse of school staff as right and normal. This disproportionate response bullshit has got to end.

The kids were probably oblivious to the lyrics though. I was shocked when I listened to GREASE as an adult as parts of that are so dirty, yet I happily sang along to it as a small child without realising.
Teacher should probably have changed some lyrics though.

I’m quite disappointed as a teacher you are perpetuating the abuse of school staff as right and normal

Now, you see Susan, originally I wanted the head on the platter - shades of John the Baptist and Salome et al (in keeping with the fact that this is a Church school. Maybe the kids could do a little dance too?) but now am tending to 'scalping' Or is that cultural approbation?

Or perhaps just a quiet word in an ear? I would be surprised if I am the only parent that complains given the responses on here. The last thing that teacher needs is a pile on.

When I was young, someone saying "fuck" on tv was a national scandal. Now, when I go shopping with my teenage ds, I have to listen to an endless, excessively loud playlist of songs by young men obsessed with their dicks and drugs and exercising their right to free speech on these issues. Sometimes the lyrics have been "sanitised" (leaving the root misogyny and sense of gang culture intact) but ds knows the originals, as does almost everyone his age. When he was at primary school, his bf tried to play a Dizzee Rascal DVD in the car, the lyrics of which were astonishingly explicit. Everyone loved Dizzee due to lovely bouncy "Bonkers". I disallowed it. This stuff is everywhere, ubiquitous like online porn, and of course it is affecting our society. I find it tiresome, and don't care if I sound like an old-fashioned librarian saying "Hush!!". Please, people making these decisions (teachers, shop DJs, whoever), rein it back a bit. While I'm generally for free speech, it is not healthy or fair to expose us to obnoxious, druggy, sexually-explicit, misogynist views in our primary schools & wherever we go.