Dodgy creative writing exercise - views?

[Fmarf]

Would like views in this.
A year ago (yes, this is an ongoing saga) the head gathered the whole school together and told them that the school playing fields were breing sold off for housing. According to my two, she put on a show of being upset. She asked the children to write a letter to ask that this not happen. Children came home from school that day and told their parents. Parents were concerned to varying degrees and there was some discussion in facebook. Some parents suggests this was not happening and it was just a writing exercise.
The next day we get a letter from school saying they had run a writing exercise and there was no intention to disturb (or something similar) and that this was a common technique In schools and that they may do it again. No apology.
So I complained on the basis that lying to children is wrong, it gives the wrong message (that lying is ok if you think you have a valid reason) and that it was also damaging to the relationship between teacher and child. I pointed out that this was poor role modelling.
The chair of governors said they would address it.
Instead of following their complaints policy (taking this to a panel of governors that had no knowledge of the issue where I would get the chance to put my points and the head to answer them) my comainy was given as part of the head's review of the year at a full governors meeting. They supported the head and said that the only change should be that they reveal the 'deception' within the same school day.
I was not happy with this and said so (after having had to chase the reaponse from them) and I was offered a meeting with the head to 'explain her rationale'.
I want my complaint to be dealt with properly and in accordance with their policy. I went to the department of education and they wrote to the schill reminding them to follow their own policy and said I could have a panel of governors from other schools to review the complaint properly.
Is it just me or is this a compete hash up on the school's part?
Is lying to children deeply wrong and should not be supported?
In all this time the head has not approached me at all (and we are into the 14th month since the original complaint). Would you expect a professional to try to tackle this head on or at least communicate with us?
So fed up with all this

I agree they should have fessed up earlier. But they said they will now.

It's been 14 months and you are still obsessing over this?

Hope. It's taking them this long to reply and deal with the complaint.

It's just you. Get over it, it was over a year ago.

I think it is just you. Why are you "so fed up" with something so minor?

Because children learn from what significant others do and not what they say. A teacher is in a significant position of power so the message the kids all got from that is a bad one - lying is ok if you want to make a point.

Well you better get banning all tv and theatre then, lying bastards, do you know none of those people are who they say they are?

Do you tell your children about Santa, the tooth fairy?

You sound mildly unhinged over this, I actually think it's a great way of engaging kids and encouraging them to question how they feel.

You went to the DfE over this?

There are often valid reasons for lying. E.g. to save people's feelings. In this case I wouldn't have called it a lie, just that they were tricked. Surely parents must be able to explain that to their children without exploding with fury? You must have other reasons for disliking the school or the HT to have taken things this far. Time to move on.

Get over it. It is trivial in the grand scheme of things. It has been dealt with. You did not complain to the Head, it sounds as if you immediately made a formal complaint to the governors so that is why the Head will not have responded to you. It was about her so she let the govs deal with it.

The governors dealt with it and the school has changed how it operates.

Schools often receive letters of complaint. TBH yours is about an incident that wasn't well thought out but not serious. Governors are volunteers. Getting panels together is not easy on top of all of the meetings they attend and committees and working groups. That is why the complaint has to be very serious before the chair will amke that decision. They discussed it and decided the way forward. You would like a panel from another school to review it- I imagine that will not happen.

You wrote to the DFE???? FFS do you think the education system has nothing else to do.

You could ring OfSTED of course and report the school. You could say it was a safeguarding issue as children were upset, deceived, the school behaved immorally by lying to them and it caused long term harm and they would inform the local safeguarding officer who would invesigate. Tha sounds a worthwhile use of thousands of pounds of their time over an issue already resolved.

Do you just want an audience, a committee to sit infront of? It sounds like it.

Making a complaint does not mean you then get your own way. You are coming across as an obsessed, interfering person who can not keep this is proportion. It is not that important. Let it go or if you think the Head and the govs are not running the school appropriately, move your child somewhere else.

Schools do get things wrong. You would probably have been better off getting an appt in the Head's diary through the school admin person and having a chat with her.

So you never read your child a fairy story? They never visited Sant's Grotto? The tooth fairy never left them a gift when they lost a tooth?

And this happened a year ago? I would suggest that it is only an 'ongoing saga' because you are making it such! I am not surprised the Head has not approached you- my advice would be 'smile, nod, ignore'. Life must be difficult if you insist on 'truth,' as you see it, all the time.
Let it go- move on.

I'll reply on this thread instead of the other one.

Several points:

1. I broadly agree with you OP that this is questionable behaviour, I mean the lying to the children, pretending something awful and upsetting is happening, etc.

1. I was upset when our school did similar and made my feelings clear but was broadly ignored by the then HT who was both incorrigible and unpleasant. I left it at that, because

1. This is extremely common in schools. It was my first experience of it and I was horrified at the scale of deception. But it transpired that a lot of schools DO these stunts and it's generally approved by the powers that be.

In short, I feel for you but you are seemingly unaware of the bigger picture and are probably wasting your time in pursuing it to this length.

I don't think they are going to do anything about it, is what I'm trying to say.

I feel similarly to you, in that I don't believe children need to be lied to in order to do good work, have fun or enjoy a project. Ours was a crappy fake spaceship they pretended had landed in the playground. Cue various children being scared or distressed.

There was a school nearby which staged an armed robbery (HT dressed in terrifying clown costume) which received a massive amount of media attention and a lot of complaints from parents locally.

That guy was a kn*b as well, having met him. Some people just have no idea. Register your disquiet then let it go, I think that's all you can hope to achieve in a world where things like this are considered acceptable.

It is quite a "common technique" as a method of developing writing for a real purpose - see Everybody Writes by the Book Trust
schools do things like finding a crashed alien space craft, discover dinosaur eggs, The Nest or ideas of their own.

So you never read your child a fairy story? They never visited Sant's Grotto? The tooth fairy never left them a gift when they lost a tooth?

The context of these is entirely different. Entirely.

Really? Isn't telling your child Santa brings them gifts a lie? Or is the OP selective in the lies her child hears?

How is it different Patter? It is still lying to children. I think Santa etc are worse as it is the child's own parent lying to them.

I get your point, that it's questionable to lie to children in this way, but seriously op, 14 months??? In the grand scheme of things it is trivial. Let it go.

This is it. Your parents are lying to you in a context of make believe and niceness within a loving home where you are probably not lied to very often, and things are generally under control and in your best interest. It's still something that can be argued to be wrong but it is normally a nice thing, a pleasant fantasy, something to get excited about. And yes there is still disappointment when it is discovered to be a falsehood, but that knowledge is often delivered over time with a few winks and hints along the way and the child often gets to take pleasure in sussing out their silly old parents.

The school deceptions are often upsetting or at least unsettling. Since when do your parents lie to you about having a break in, or selling off half your garden, or stuff like that?

It would be considered cruel and insane.
Yet it's Ok for teachers to do this?

It is better fighting for things that really matter- if you make such a fuss over the trivial you will not be taken seriously in the future.

I don't mean that school isn't a normally safe and happy environment - for most kids it probably is.

But the nature of the deception is very different and the fact that teachers are not your own parents, and are normally in a position where their word is law, does contribute to the argument in that the context is subtly different.

It's like parents shouting at their own child, as opposed to teachers shouting at someone else's child.

The boundaries are different and operate in different ways. You shouldn't try and mess with this.

What do your children think? I know that at that age mine would have said, rather pityingly, 'it is only a story mum, you don't have to take it so seriously'!

They did something g like this at our school. After the writing was done they explained it was made up. It was no big deal. Everyone accepted it was 'a lie' used to promote learning.

Using well known drama tecniques is very different from lying. Do some research on the work of Dorothy Heatcote, for example, about using the veil of fiction, and role play. The power of immersive, imaginitive work.

You sound completely over-invested in being determined to prove this as lying. I would be very upset if people like you put an end to imaginative or creative approaches to learning.

You wrote to the DoE?

Even if you are right on the technicality of the complaints procedure YABVU to create this much fuss about such a small issue.

Do you always see things in rigid black and white

The school could have easily said 'IMAGINE if the fields were being sold off. How would you feel?' But instead they took the ridiculous stance of saying 'the fields are being sold off'.

I would be livid. It is not a valued teaching method and cannot be compared to Santa or the tooth fairy which are nice positive long standing myths.

Saying the fields are being sold off would be like me telling my friends/relatives that their garden is to be bulldozed by the council and used for something without consent. It would cause deep upset if believed.

Also the school is sending a clear message that lying is ok. So I guess you could always write to the school on formal paper and tell them their funding is being cut in half. Let them stew on it for 24 hours and panic.