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?

@74NewStreet - I'm a foster carer and many of the children we look after have suffered abuse, neglect, trauma in their own homes. They are then plucked away to live in a new foster home, which is not surprisingly upsetting and confusing too no matter how dedicated and compassionate the foster care. The one constant they may have is their school (including their teacher, their classmates, the lunch they eat there, the nice clean school loos).

So yes, school often is a designated safe space where all is butterflies and rainbows (in comparison to what they may be going home to).

Apologies, Puppy, of course there will be children who aren’t lucky enough to have a stable background.

No worries, I was just pointing out an example of one group of children that might need their school to be a default safe space. I'm sure there are lots of other examples too.

🙂

It’s just a writing stimulus, the same as setting up giant foot prints and pretending a dragon has been in! They’ve done nothing wrong except give a real life reason to write

Because kids don't have imaginations or experiences to write from otherwise Honestly it's a wonder Shakespeare, Austen or Julia Donaldson ever managed to think of anything, since they weren't given a "real life reason to write" by some teacher.

It’s not a new thing and it definitely shouldn’t be effecting children feeling safe in school.

Oh well they'd better not feel unsafe then. Except they often do, as shown by the many accounts on this thread.

I suspect it is a lot to do with how it's done - whether teachers are careful to make it a but "wink wink nudge nudge", have a sense of proportion about it and think it through properly.

They did a similar thing in ds2’s school in year 3. Made out the school had been burgled and even went so far as to have some act as a police officer and break a window. You can imagine the horrid week we had after that. Tears and anxiety, the works. School in the end had to issue a written apology because so many kids were traumatised.

This would upset and scare my eldest boy who is very bright but very sensitive 7yo. It would scare, upset and confuse my autistic child.

My daughters school did something similar. One was a alien had crashed landed in the school over night and they had video evidence of it. The whole school when we walked through in the morning was covered in police tape I was abit 🤔 thinking something had happened. Then they watched the "footage" of it crashing and a lot of the kids basically shit themselves!

Another one was one of the teachers had messed up the classrooms and they had to find out who it was by interviewing the 3 teachers and finding evidence. They liked that one though.