Mocked ?

[Primarymum100]

Walking home today with my 5 year-old daughter, we passed an 8 or 9 year-old boy who suddenly put on a very heavy “ethnic” accent, clearly mocking us (we’re from ethnic minority). I felt angry and disappointed — especially that my daughter saw it (but fortunately too small to understand what went on). She’s so young, and I don’t want her growing up feeling ashamed of who she is.

What shocked me more is that this happened outside one of the top private schools in North London the same school my daughter currently attends. I had expected a more respectful culture in a place like this.

Has anyone else experienced this kind of accent-mocking with their children? Would you raise it with the school, or try to handle it another way? I want to protect my daughter, but also make sure it’s addressed constructively.

If the child is from the same school I’d raise it with school. This is classed as a racist incident and should be dealt with by the school.
Hope you are OK.

So sorry you and your daughter experienced this. Like PP said, if it was a pupil from the school, report to school.

100% tell the school . Hopefully the school will be rightfully appalled and respond very firmly to stamp out this racism amongst their pupils. I’m sorry you and your dc encountered this.

I don't know why you think people who attend private school are less likely to be racist.

Thanks, I will feed this back to the school. I do think kids often don’t fully understand the consequences of their words or actions or how it might make someone else feel, and school really is the best place for them to learn that.

And just to clear up what I said earlier about private schools, sorry, reading it back I can see how it came across. What I meant was that state schools are restricted by catchment, so the intake depends a lot on the local area. Private schools don’t have that restriction and, at least in my experience, that can make them more diverse, especially if the local neighbourhood itself isn’t very diverse (like where we live) .