Parents offered class photo with no 'complex needs' pupils

[BlowDryRat]

This is appalling. A school photographer offered class photo options with SEN children removed. The kids and parents involved must feel so hurt.

It’s great that the school and council came down hard but I wonder how many parents ordered the photos with just the “normal” kids. I say that because you’d be amazed how many parents genuinely told me to my face “we didn’t invite him to the party because he wouldn’t enjoy it” when there was no evidence of this and often said in front of him, no issues with his hearing either.

I imagine it was one of those composite photos where they take the pics individually or in small groups and then photo shop it together.

@MoveItAnLo I don't disagree with you. My child would have been one of the children airbrushed out - I just don't understand why it would be offered and I can't imagine it being taken up.

Yeah there's a kid in my son's class who intentionally spoils every picture by spitting on the kids in front, sticking his fingers up, screaming. Autistic , not his fault, I get it but I wouldn't pay money for a photo of that so I don't have any class photos. Sometimes there are reasons.

It wasn't a decision the school took is what the school says which is an attempt to mislead. It's intended to make people think the school didn't know but obviously they did because it's literally the only way the photo could have been taken. It doesn't make sense that the school didn't know.

So by saying it wasn't their decision are they saying the photographer said hey, let's take one without the disabled kids and the teachers said ok, I'll round them up and take them to one side... making it not the school's decision technically I suppose.

If it was a class photo then who identified the pupils with disabilities if not the school? Giving the photographer information they had no right to have. So potentially a breach of the children's privacy.

We split the children up at my school, the Tempest photographer doesn’t, they just arrange the group we select. Of course, children with SEN are mixed in the class group and I can’t think of any situation where we would separate them out. A child with ASC might feel more comfortable with their friendship group, or need their 1:1 with them, but that’s as far as it would go for us.

Awful!! We had weird photos taken by the primary school once and I'm sure it was tempest. The children were all photographed individually with props (book, tennis racket etc) then they were photoshopped together in a big long group photo that had to be rolled up. It was so weird because the children were all the wrong size.. so a child who was in real life about two inches shorter than my son looked about half a foot taller. I wonder if something similar was done in this case so it would be less obvious that the children with complex needs could be erased.

Yes, that’s the way Tempest do the class photos. The results can look a bit weird!

Absolutely agree with this. The explanation stinks.

Ohhhh- that explains it. I must ask ds if his photos are done that way. I suspect not as I have seen it done for sports teams occasionally and it is always really obvious as the kids look like stickers! 😂

Fucking outrageous! 😡

It's literally not

It’s really easy to remove individuals from photos, especially for professionals. They will have taken photos of the kids in groups and then removed children with obvious complex needs.

It’s disgusting. But I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the schools response. It absolutely could happen without the school having input on it.

This is what the first post looks like when not using the app. Perhaps OP could report their post to @mumsnet so they can see there’s an app issue.

For anyone using assistive technology or who cannot see the picture there is picture of a school sign that says "Aybone Primary"

Would it make sense to put the kids with complex needs to be photographed first (or last) as they will be the least likely to be able to wait? I have a memory of being put at the end of a very long line in primary school as I was quite happy to live inside my own head and whiled the time away making up stories about famous five style adventures.

Shocking

Sadly as the parent of a special needs child myself I can imagine only too well some parents opting for it

Shocking that anyone thought this was a good idea.

I’m glad it’s being reported and shared because I think a lot of people without much experience of people with complex needs have an unrealistic rose tinted view of how they’re treated.

Tempest airbrushed a facial birthmark from my son's face without asking. Someone just looked at him and decided his face needed changing. I was livid.

Aboyne - it’s a small town on Deeside in Aberdeenshire. I used to live near there.

It’s so awful that I’m really hoping there’s more to the story and there’s been some horrible mix up. If not then Tempest go even further down in my estimation.

Apologies. Sorry to anyone who I have confused with my post

Just appalling.

Fucking hell that's awful.

Oh wow, that's awful.

Rotten.

@Mumofteenandtween I agree with you, this is the only scenario where this could have plausibly happened. There is a building next door to my dc secondary school where a group of year 10 students with complex needs attend. They are on roll at the local SEN school in the next town and mainly stay in their own building but occasionally they join the year 10's in the mainstream school next door. I'm not sure much about it because my 2 are in year 11 and year 8. So I could imagine a photographer offering a photo of the year 10 children from the secondary school or a photo including the year 10's from the building next door. The photographer should have taken a photo of the children from the separate unit as well and then offered for example "photo of Mrs Jackson's year 3 class" or "photo of the year 3 children who do their learning in the rainbow room" or "joint photo of all year 3 children". Because it goes both ways too, my child is a member of the year 6 class who spends some time in the nurture room doing extra maths and English. But if he was in the nurture room full time I would probably rather have a photo of him with the other children in the nature room rather than one of him with a group of year 6 children he never spent time with. I can't imagine the photographer could have removed children with complex needs from one of the 2 photos. Some children obviously have complex needs but for many you would need access to their school records to be able to know.