To feel sick at the sight of posh kids dressed as tramps?

[musicalmum43]

My nieces go to posh private schools (same school as the Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice), and one of them posted on FB photos of a day they had spent at school dressed as tramps - they made a shelter in the classroom (inside obviously in case they got cold!) and one of them had drawn a beard on herself. It all looked great fun and jolly hockeysticks, but I think they could have got the girls down to the local Salvation Army shelter to hand out some soup or clean a hostel or something instead. I know going to a private school is because the parents are terrified their girls won't cope in the rough inner city that is Windsor (!!!!) but this level of role play is sick making. What on earth did they get out of this, except to have great larks, what ho!! I could just hear their posh voices chirping away!!

Perhaps they were rehearsing for 'Oliver' or something.

Sounds like you have quite a few issues with them though.

Perhaps musicalmum they DID go to the local homeless hostel.

there is a touch of inverted snobbery about yr post. Like my DH who thinks Etonians aren't human! YABU

Original -that's for sure; I bet the teacher enjoyed it the most. so much for being able to move away from the National Curriculum a bit!

would it have been OK if it had not been a POSH school?????

Im sure there was a 'point' to them dressing as tramps and it wasnt something they just pulled out of thin air just for the sake of it.

I just feel that the reason kids go to this school is to protect them from all us nasty commoners and of course it is absolutely right for all children to understand the causes of homelessness, possible solutions, respect for the homeless, sympathy etc etc, but it makes me laugh to see these girls having to set up a shelter indoors! They seemed to be having a VERY good time, and nothing wrong with that either, and of course the girls can choose what they put on FB. I know I'm probably a bit mixed up about it, BUT, knowing my nieces, skins the thickness of rhinos, empathy levels zero, I just wonder how much would have gone in.

My ds looks like a tramp but speaks like prince charles! Steptoe chic here in brighton

Yes, you are right BTW, I do think private schools are an abomination, and I think it absolutely hilarious that my brother, who made it through school in Dagenham, got his A levels, got a first at Keele, went to Harvard, has a brilliant job in London, is still so unconfident about his daughters' abilities to cope that they have to pay for their education.

"I just feel that the reason kids go to this school is to protect them from all us nasty commoners "

That's what you feel. And hence your post.

I sincerely doubt that is the main reason that all the parents have chosen this school.

YABU

maybe daddy gave a hefty donation to 'shelter' on the back of this?

maybe something did 'sink in' with the girls......cant they have a bit of fun as well as learning?

AIBU to be sick at the sight of someone hyperventilating about 'posh' kids? (they are human beings, too, you know). I suggest finding something more important to bitch worry about.

'They made a shelter in the classroom (inside obviously in case they got cold!)'

Ds had 'Victorian' day in school, they learnt about it, without the need to actually send them up chinmeys or throw their own shit into the street.

Amazing what you can do with a bit of imagination!

Op! That's the chippiest post I have read.

YANBU.

The fact that the kids were at private school and come from very affluent backgrounds makes a misguided and naive project utterly abhorrent.

The OP is not blaming the children; how can they have a concept of homelessness other than what they have been taught?

This would have been wrong in any school, much in the same way that 'celebrities' pretend to be homeless for a week or two and claim to know what it's like. Disgusting. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

I seriously doubt whether an organisation such as Shelter was consulted wrt this project- they would have been slacked-jawed in horror at the very thought of it, much like myself.

YANBU
it's abhorrent. It would be really nasty and insensitive and completely pointless in any school, but amongst the most privileged children - it is just teaching them that they are a different species to 'tramps' and that 'tramps' are less than people.

At state schools there is a good chance that some of the kids have parents who are 'tramps' (or street drinkers anyway) but at private school - yuk.

It reminds me of prince Harry and his chums having a 'chavs' fancy dress party. Let's all dress up as poor folk, what larks.

Interesting. Are you still Ms Gorblimey of Dagenham, while your brother is Mr Posh of Windsor? I think you sound a bit chippy and jealous of him. He's clearly successful - why shouldn't he send his children to private school if he wants to and can afford it? And they might have been doing something entirely different to "pretending to be tramps". Or is that what they said on FB?

I agree with you. Sounds horrible. How the hell is spending a day in a 'shelter' in a nice warm classroom in scruffy clothes going to give them any understanding at all.

Regardless of poshness.

I think this sort of thing is really distasteful. It is not real and it does not help the children to empathise with people who suffer hardship in life which I am sure is what the point of the exercise was.

I agree with OP - a good dose of reality would be good for them, spending the day with the Salvation Army or helping in an old person's home.

It is character building for kids to do voluntary work as it gives them confidence that they have actually done something worthwhile and also helps them to realise how lucky they are to be sent to a private school.

YANBU

very tasteless IMO, bit like Marie Antoinette playing at sheperdesses.

YABU and totally snobby.

When I went to the Imperial War Museum (absolutely fab, go if you can) there were numerous school parties, dressed up as evacuees, carrying 'gas masks' etc and those kids were having the time of their lives - literally screaming for joy.

Or do you want education to be a thoroughly miserable experience that leaves the kids crying, like the ones in East Kilbride who misunderstood an exercise designed to make them feel like Jewish kids facing the holocaust?

You clearly don't like your neices very much, why do you go on their facebook page? Leave them to their 'poshness' and get on with being unposh or whatever it is you think you are that makes you so superior to them.

Thing is OP, you don't know what they were actually dressing up for, as far as I can see. You are guessing.

That East Kilbride exercise sounds interesting, Morris- do you have a link?

That was my point, ISNT. But you are more eloquent than me.

I thought it was that good it stood repeating mrsS

I'm on the laptop and can't do links, sorry. It was on the BBC Scottish bulletin last night.

Primary school in East Kilbride, they did this exercise that involved telling the kids that some of them had lower IQs and would be sent away from their parents.

It wasn't clear that it was made up, some of the kids thought it was real and became distressed.

There were parental complaints, the school apologised and the parents are now satisfied, as the school is otherwise very good.

I'm sure most of us remember the old 'blue eyes/ brown eyes' prejudice exercise from school days, though it was always clear that it wasn't for real.