To think the school have lost the plot

[Hardymonica]

I am so cross with the staff at my daughter’s primary school. Today they set up a fake incident where it appeared that someone had vandalised the girls toilets. The children were tasked with writing a report about it and it was then revealed at the end of the day that the teachers set it up.

My daughter is seven, she understands logically it was the teachers who did it but it has really unsettled her. For the whole day she was led to believe that school was unsafe and the impact of that has stayed with her. She is anxious about using the toilet at school on her own now and won’t be in a room on her own at home. She gets very distressed at bedtime, saying she’s frightened of being on her own in case intruders come.

I’ve had to send a message to the school to let them know and ask them to make sure she’s using the toilet. They are aware that she suffered anxiety last year but obviously weren’t thinking of the more sensitive children when they planned this bizarre thing. I’ve asked them to let us know in advance in future if they’re planning a pretend event. I’m sure they could have thought of a more positive incident to use to inspire them to write.

Aibu to think this was a bizarre idea for an activity and to feel angry they didn’t think about the potential effects on certain children?

@Hoik I can't believe they think that alien thing is a good idea?! Wtf!!! Your poor son!!!

When they were reading The Borrowers in class, DS came in one day and the teacher had set the room up to look like the Borrowers had visited, with tiny footprints and things. Now that I can get on board with.

Our school did a dragon egg in the playground - even got the police to visit and put tape around it! They edited a video of their cctv of a dragon breathing fire and flying around.

DD6 was terrified. Any noise she was worried it was the dragon. I had to tell her the school made it up but she was still scared!

Creative writing and situations can be a good thing, but the toilet fake incident is something you should object too. At the higher end of a primary school there will be some girls starting periods, and in no way should the emotional trauma of this be made worse by someone being frightened of using toilets.

In my daughters old primary school they were studying WWII in the year above her. Some bright teacher thought it would be great to tell the children that war had broken out and that they were going to be evacuated immediately and they were told to write a letter to their parents as they would be sent away without chance to see their parents. Let's just say it didn't go well (cue 30 hysterical children and 30 sets of very angry parents). They never repeated it again for some reason 🙄😂

When I was at school, a mysterious locked brief case appeared in our classroom. We write about what we imagined was inside, and investigated to find out who it belonged to (doing interviews and taking finger prints). The police visited to explain what happened to lost property that was handed in to them.

It’s been 23 years and I still remember so much about that. So clearly sparking kids imagination helps with learning, but why spark it with something scary when it’s so unnecessary?

@MinkowskisButterfly...Think that's the local school to me!

My DD1 is an extremely anxious child, and her primary school did something something similar - those outlines they do around murder victims! Good that you have let the school know, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable for them to have done this activity. Then at home you work through the anxiety it brings up and try to build your child’s resilience, as things like this will crop up throughout their time at school.

A friend's yr1 dd just had a visit from "the Queen", with exciting letters and much making of bunting. Imagine how fucked offf they all were to find out it was actually last years TA in a hat.
My dd school had invacuation drill the day before the school got around to sending out letters to the parents about what they were planning. 2 days later we got a stern letter about letting our children play online games as there had been an outreak of fighting. Of course there bloody was, the poor kids were busy getting their heads around the school not been safe and being at risk from unspecified intruders.

Did my work experience in a primary school way back when, so the girl will be all grown up now, but had been fairly recently adopted from foster care after being severely abused and neglected by the birth parents. The police had removed her from the home with the social worker, as they have to do, about 2 years prior IIRC. When the local PC came in to present a talk she had a melt down and what I can only describe as a panic attack, thinking they'd come to take her away again. Some kids aren't resilient. Some have been through incredibly traumatic things, and it's because it isn't real that it's totally heartless and a waste of energy of a child dealing with trauma. Not every child victim of DV/A will be known to the teachers, either.
Our house was burgled when I was younger and it was so violating and horrible, my parents who are very sensible, dad in the military so hardly a lack of resilience, were also really shaken. We never got over the feeling that someone had gotten into our home, the one place anyone should always feel safe, and moved shortly after. I can see how this sort of thing is frightening for children.

It isn't real and that's the whole point, it isn't teaching them anything realistic, it isn't realistic that a school would make the children investigate a murder, burglary or attack. There are plenty of interesting writing stimulus activities that don't involve pretending a crime has taken place in a building children are meant to feel secure in.

So, when DaddyofFive (spelling might be wrong on name) does this sort of thing, we all agree it is abusive.

Why is it supposed to be okay for schools to do the same thing?

This is nothing but cruel.

@JosefKeller what exactly have they been prepared for then? Are children usually asked to investigate murders, break ins and other associated crimes? It doesn't sound like the children are being taught anything useful beyond it being a writing prompt. This isn't a fire drill or evacuation practice, it's a staged crime that the children have to inspect and find the culprit. They're not being taught about adults putting them in inappropriate situations, or what to do if there's an emergency.
Please, do tell us how this scenario teaches children how to fight back when an adult is being inappropriate?
I swear all you do is look to be the antagonist on every thread, and throw logic out the window in doing so. Have a day off...

When DD was in reception the whole school topic was the Tudors. One of the teachers dressed up as Henry the Eights and barged into the classroom shouting about chopping people’s heads off. DD was 4 at the time and terrified. Who thought that would be a good idea?

In year 8 we had a new RE teacher who segregated the class by race, gave chocolate to the blonde blue eyed kids, and made all the kids with brown hair do lines. It turned out that it was a “teaching moment” about discrimination and only lasted one lesson but it really made me hate her for a long time!

”I hoped she’d be my new friend.”

@NearlyGranny That’s so sad 😞.

Weird thing for school to do

Idiotic

Rhayader

^

Friggin Nora!

When was this?

Whoever thought it was a good idea to do this is pretty sick.

My dd has continence issues from withholding due partly to awful school toilets. This is not uncommon . I'd be writing a compliant. Eric charity would likely support you.

Anyone out there remember this one?:

www.tes.com/teaching-resource/school-under-siege-2-0-11068329

I taught this in the late 70s. The premise is no-one can leave school because there's been an illness. This was one the Year 7 curriculum. We got a senior teacher to come to the classroom door and call the teacher aside, looking all serious.

The noise from the class as they reacted was bloody unbelievable. Took a while to calm them down and channel all that energy into some dot point writing.:o

I don't understand why they had to make the children think it was real, surely they could still do the detective stuff and write interesting reports knowing it was pretend from the start?

I must admit I wouldn't have considered that children would get upset by such a scenario, maybe the teacher didn't realise that either. Now I'm wondering how many children got upset/anxious after the last fire drill at DD's school - they didn't tell the children that they were going to have a drill like they usually do, and they set off fake smoke to make it seem like a real fire. It was supposed to make them practice finding alternate escape routes to avoid the smoke/fire but it must have been scary to some.

Not really sure about this. In the deep recesses of my mind I am thinking that it is preferable to seeing 7 year old zombies staring at screens, often playing violent video games.

Is it a lesson in critical thinking?

I do feel sorry for today's parents. It's a fine balancing and juggling act that has to be followed. Thereby causing more stress and anxiety.

Unfortunately, in any school or workplace, there is always someone who is going to be badly affected by some incident or another.

A family member has a reply to her Dr. when he remarks how amazing she is after recovering from an accident.

Ï just get up, get dressed and get going"" There's no other alternative