Kids and schools book choice of Mister Tom

[LiJo2015]

Ill keep this short as currently baby napped with 5 month old so typing one handed!

11 yo son currently readjng mister tom for school. Came down stairs yesterday and visibly shocked and a little shaken at the part about his abusive mums treatment of his new baby sibling.

No warning about this book came from the school. I have contacted the school to explain that although i wouldnt want storylines like this not to be covered but they can be distressing and would want the assurance that its being handled empathetically.

So

AINBU - if so, why

AIBU - if so, why

It's not a text I would choose to teach by remote learning because I would find it hard to teach it how I would like to. Remote learning doesn't offer the opportunity for the sort of discussion I would want to have with that text.

However, unless there was information that suggested a conversation was needed then it wouldn't be my first instinct to specifically inform parents. Given at KS2 the children will, most likely, have some parental assistance to access remote learning and the text is an established KS2 book then I think it's a bit much to be annoyed that school didn't outline the book's topics.

Good night me tom is suitable for children in secondary school.

I’m a secondary English teacher with 32 years of experience. While this book is fantastic, I think it’s become a victim of a recent (last 10 years or so?) trend to move books down the age range. It used to be a Y8 book and, while there’s nothing in the language to preclude primary, the themes and literature based work that can be done around it in Y8 mean the children get much more out of it. People seem to think ‘challenging’ texts mean those really aimed at slightly older children. I’m particularly horrified by a PP mentioning Of Mice and Men in Y7 - it’s such a literary book that so much will be missed! I can’t imagine talking about the imagery if the fall and an imperfect/fallen world, or lots of the symbolism. What a waste.
I think KS2 and 3 teachers should think much more carefully not about whether the book is an appropriate read for the year group but about whether that year group is the one in which they would get the most out of studying the book. It’s a different decision.

@cardibach

Really interestimg insight- thabkyou

cardibach
I was also horrified by the OMAM in Year 7 comment too. It sounds like a school who've simply taken a GCSE scheme of work and put it in KS3 the second it was taken off the GCSE course.

There's some texts I'm happy to see the back of, like Holes. There's others that are great main texts that work well with other texts (such as Private Peaceful or War Horse where I've linked it to challenging war poetry), but they've been taken off the menu because apparently a feeder primary decided to 'do' them in Year 4.

I wonder if we might be kindred spirits on the trend in the last 5 years to fill Key Stage 3 with endless 19th century texts, to the point where some departments teach nothing but extracts for huge chunks of KS3.

And by kindred spirits, I mean feel this trend isn't decent English teaching.

cardibach

I don't think so. It was a primary (year 6) study text in 1994, when I did it.

@cardibach my DC has just read Holes as a yr6 class text. He really enjoyed it and read it all in a couple of days (books that have that impact on him are rare). So I'm curious why you're glad to see the back of it? I ask as someone with every limited knowledge of the book itself.

I agree and I think it's a trend among parents too, not just schools. The number of people I know whose kids have read all the Harry Potter books by about Year 3, for example (and seen the films). Sure, you can take them simply as 'fun books about wizards', but there's so much in there that a 6 or 7 year old would miss out on - the clever use of language, lots of the humour, the intricacy of the plot. Ditto kids who read His Dark Materials aged 7 or 8 - frankly any 7 year old who properly understands Amber Spyglass is some kind of prodigy. Of course, some children will continue to revisit these books as they get older, but others won't. And I think they then miss out on so much wonderful fiction that's actually appropriate for those age groups, because once they've read HP or whatever it seems a bit 'babyish' to go back to Roald Dahl or Winnie the Pooh or Charlotte's Web.

gooseygooseywanderingfree
That was me who was glad to see the back of it.

I think it is a nice story and an enjoyable read. It lends itself well to the KS2 curriculum, especially for the range of writing they have to cover.

At KS3 it doesn't have much depth in my opinion and it's rubbish for teaching analysis. Most materials I've seen for it at KS3 lack challenge and in my experience it tends to go hand in hand with low expectations and work being set far below what would be reasonable for a typical KS3 student.

gooseygooseywanderingfree

@cardibach my DC has just read Holes as a yr6 class text. He really enjoyed it and read it all in a couple of days (books that have that impact on him are rare). So I'm curious why you're glad to see the back of it? I ask as someone with every limited knowledge of the book itself.“

Loved Holes, really original story, well written. We enjoyed the film, too.

I read this book around the same age in school, I think YABU

I remember some junk news article a few years ago, affecting dismay at a survey that showed that most children have not read Dickens. I was dumbfounded - who on earth thinks that Dickens is a children's author?! I first read Dickens at school in year 8, and it was hard going even then.

Books of this calibre are exactly the way children should be taught about the darker sides of humanity. But YANBU to be concerned given your personal history.

[quote gooseygooseywanderingfree]@cardibach my DC has just read Holes as a yr6 class text. He really enjoyed it and read it all in a couple of days (books that have that impact on him are rare). So I'm curious why you're glad to see the back of it? I ask as someone with every limited knowledge of the book itself. [/quote]
I didn’t say I was glad to see the back of it...I’ve only mentioned Mr. Tom and OMAM

@LolaSmiles

And by kindred spirits, I mean feel this trend isn't decent English teaching.

Absolutely. It’s a rubbish development.

We've covered that book multiple times in year 6 - it's entirely age appropriate & is a very sensitively written text, always prompting great discussion.

I am a Y6 teacher and normally cover this book in the autumn. As a staff, we've decided not to do it this year as we need to ensure children are emotionally supported and have things explained to them throughout which we can't do with them at home (many of our children are vulnerable and may face similar issues at home). Totally get where you're coming from.
There are other topics we're not teaching now as well, like some of the pshe topics which we feel they need to do in school with us.
Having said that; of course, any child could take this book out of the library at any time read it without their parents realising. Slightly different though!

@cardibach my apologies, wrong poster!

@gooseygooseywanderingfree No worries! It’s a good book for primary, I think, rather than secondary - kind of for the reasons I was saying I’d prefer Mr. Tom in KS3 and OMAM in KS4 or at least late KS3.

DD did Mr Tom last year in Yr 7 both the film and the book. She really enjoyed it and asked for the book for Christmas. It's brought up quite a few sensitive questions that we've discussed

@Toptop498

the bloody cosy view of the war

The parts of the book that should probably have been edited don't have much to do with the war.

Of course they did - evacuation revealed huge amounts of deprivation in the city children, which strengthened the case for the founding of the Welfare State, as people saw just how poverty, neglect, lack of medical care and malnutrition affected children from urban areas. And being killed or wounded in air raids are absolutely WWII related events.

Of course they did - evacuation revealed huge amounts of deprivation in the city children, which strengthened the case for the founding of the Welfare State, as people saw just how poverty, neglect, lack of medical care and malnutrition affected children from urban areas. And being killed or wounded in air raids are absolutely WWII related events

Those aren’t the aspects that might be considered by some people as suitable for editing. The physical and emotional abuse and particularly the cupboard incident are the parts that concern people.

I can see what you mean. But. You have to break it to them at some point that there are fucked up people out there. Be thankful he found out from a film and not from his own experiences.
Speak to him, ask him if he’s ok and how it made him feel.

@VinylDetective

Of course they did - evacuation revealed huge amounts of deprivation in the city children, which strengthened the case for the founding of the Welfare State, as people saw just how poverty, neglect, lack of medical care and malnutrition affected children from urban areas. And being killed or wounded in air raids are absolutely WWII related events

Those aren’t the aspects that might be considered by some people as suitable for editing. The physical and emotional abuse and particularly the cupboard incident are the parts that concern people.

But that's the point? He was poor, hungry, cold, he was neglected, he was unloved and he was abused. He was lied to and made to feel that everything was his fault. And she reacted with rage to him telling the truth, having pretended to be caring and loving in public with him. It also shows that despite what many abusers will say, that whipping with a belt was normal 'in their day', that decent people, even 80 years ago, didn't do it.