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.

Yeah it's taking a while for the facts to come out so I think it's fair for people to have given it the benefit of the doubt initially

This really is terrible.

It says in the article that the parent of the child in the wheelchair got two links for photos for her - one photo with her in and one with her airbrushed out, but her twin sister who is in another class she only got one link.

So malicious and really devastating for the parents concerned.

Natalie added: 'I queried it with the school and they queried it with the photographer. He said ''yes, that's what we have done.'' I mean it depends what they've asked exactly but this is incredibly damning if accurate

Arboyne primary is a rural school in Aberdeenshire. I would be extremely surprised if it has a separated SEN unit. This is the case of 1 child from 1 class and 2 children from another not being in the final photo (1 version of it). Given the parents are praising the school this is probably editing rather than physically removing children.

Tempest run franchise style with local photographers so how much is 1 individual and how much main company is unclear.

Just read the daily Mail link and the school do have a SEN hub, which actually makes this worse.

I have a child with sen and I would be absolutely devastated if this had happened to them. I do notice she is always in back of photos when there posted as class photos and put online. Disgusting & vile

Are they tall? If so it might be a hight thing. If not yeah ask them not to hide them!!

SEN children often end up at the back on impromptu class photos because they are often sitting with their TA who is supporting them and they don't respond to the instruction of 'lets get a photo of you all- stand here' etc. the same way the other children do'. I work in a primary school and have never come across any teacher that would even think let alone tell a child to stand at the back because they want to hide them. The only time I have seen this is with a child who always ruins every photo by pulling a stupid face- not because they had SEN as they didn't.

I have just read this article on Daily M site. If true it’s absolutely appalling. Imagine how the parents of these children must feel. If true this firm should be prosecuted.

It's tempest photography. I think they must be a national company as I live no where near this school but they do the school photos at my kids' school.

I am reserving judgement tbh. I want to wait and see what the company’s investigation turns up.

Tempest are surely not going to be this stupid. They must have a massive contract with schools which they would stand to lose if this is true. It’s 2024. It surely cannot be what it looks like.

By their own admission, they intentionally retook the shot without the asn children. It wasnt a mistake, the asn kids weren't late and a shot had already been taken, they were purposely excluded 😡

@whitebreadjamsandwich absolutely horrific.

One of the Mothers was on LBC she was devastated and was shielding her child so her dd would never know. However she did say everyone was talking about it.

Poor kids.

Here is one of the Mums talking about it, she is very level headed and fair, and talks about how she initially tried to find 'good intent' in their actions. https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5GiPSmoeL4/?igsh=MTl3bWpodG5kaGRyaw==

So all of those speculating that these parents jumped to conclusions and called discrimination without the facts are wrong on that front.

Its interesting how those of you who 'reserved judgement' have not been back to acknowledge the company's wrongdoing when more facts are now known and the company themselves have admitted wrongdoing.

I think it's also interesting the number of
posts on this thread compared to say a thread on class, KM or even the weather says a lot really.

That’s horrific. I thought it might have been an oversight, seeing how they’ve conducted their shoots where I’ve worked before, but the fact that it was intentionally done is awful.

Those poor children and families, I can’t imagine how they feel.

No no. I’ll come back and say it. I reserved judgement to hear/see both sides of the story. Now that more information has come out, I think it’s absolutely fucking shocking. Sickening and indefensible and it must not happen again.

do you think that not automatically jumping to hysteria on one side of the story is somehow discriminatory? Do you think it’s the same as leaping to the company’s defence?

*I think it's also interesting the number of
posts on this thread compared to say a thread on class, KM or even the weather says a lot really"

I agree there's been at least three separate threads on this and none of them have been super busy, I was thinking the same. Where's the usual outpouring of outrage?

do you think that not automatically jumping to hysteria on one side of the story is somehow discriminatory? Do you think it’s the same as leaping to the company’s defence?

Thank you for coming back. There's nothing at all wrong with reserving judgement (quite the opposite!), you'll note that I didn't post anything hysterical either.

But it's fascinating how some people's initial reflex was to try to explain away this issue, even if that meant engaging in some pretty jazzy mental gymnastics. Whereas those of us with lived experience of this shit were more ready to believe it, it rang so true to me that my initial reaction was almost 'meh'. I have a sibling with a disability and can honestly say they've experienced decades of this kind of heartless discrimination.

I guess it underlines the old saying that we don't see things as they are, we see things as we are.

Can this be reported to Police Scotland as a hate crime on April 1st? Protected characteristic of disability under the new Hate Crime Bill. Many people will continue to be outraged and talking about this after that date. It can be reported from outside Scotland.

There are at least three threads about this story. I think that says a lot, personally. If you add up all the posts from those threads, you might get a number that you find more satisfactory.

absolutely this. My child is ECV and has learning difficulties. Covid taught me very quickly that alot of people considered him essentially sub human and not worthy of a vaccine (or indeed the 5 he ended up getting due to his health issues) and i had one mother of a kid in his class round on me one day and ask why the hell people should be isolating for kids like mine when they probably should have died at birth anyway.

It's like covid gave people licence to show who they really were and they no longer felt the need to maintain a veneer of civility or humanity. And its hard to explain how bloody fucking awful society can be towards those who have disabilities so actually the story does not surprise me one little bit.

But it's fascinating how some people's initial reflex was to try to explain away this issue, even if that meant engaging in some pretty jazzy mental gymnastics

I find it reassuring actually, that so many people simply couldn’t imagine that any company would do this deliberately! Sadly it seems Tempest would, and have.

Exactly. It was so unbelievably crass that it was difficult to even imagine someone doing this. And of course many people have experience of the way Tempest builds photos by photographing a number of small groups to make into one. So it wasn't hard to imagine that something had been misunderstood and in my case needed no mental gymnastics

As a special school teacher, I had both the experience of the photographers and the unwillingness to imagine that anyone could be so awful to children like the ones I taught, to make me think that they're must have been a mistake.

But I posted again about five minutes after my 'it must be a misunderstanding' post when I saw the Mail link and things became clearer..