Active discussions

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

Original poster

Quite pissed off about this, am I being daft?

373 replies

FlightAttendant · 05/01/2010 17:59

Today ds1 went abck to school and was really looking forward to it.

I went to get him at 3.15 and he was absolutely busting to tell me about the 'thing' that had landed in the woodland bit of the playground.

I followed him and a large crowd of grown ups and children was standing around this thing, which looked to me very much like a huge air conditioning unit half buried in the ground, with a slightly blackened tree next to it.

I have to admit I immediately thought it was a kind of set up, for fun - there was stripey tape all round it and nobody allowed to touch.

Ds told me that it had apparently 'crashed' last night, and was from a satellite or spaceship or similar and it even had the voltage written on it!

He loves this kind of thing so was utterly serious and really quite blown away by the idea. They had spent all day finding out about it and someone from the BBC had apparently come and interviewed a witness, with a microphone but no camera.

There is nothing on the BBC website. The newsletter just arrived and there is a large paragraph about it - 'We hope the children enjoyed the 'space mystery' today, our project this term is all about space' etc etc...

I didn't know what to do, so stupidly, probably, I told ds it wasn't actually from a spaceship, and he started to cry

I mean is this just like the Father Christmas thing we do with them, or is it actually rather cruel of them to lie about something so potentially thrilling - I have probably done the wrong thing but he would have found out later anyway no doubt and been MORE upset.

He is insisting the newsletter is wrong and is very cross and fed up.

Can anyone talk me down, I really don't need another confrontation with the HT...I am just so sad for him.

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
Set a reminder
Feenie · 06/01/2010 17:23

No, madamarcati, it's different! I would never say a trip was going to happen and then cancel. Totally different to involving children in something which might have happened - a letter from an important fictional character arriving at school for a class in a posh cardboard tube complete with red ribbon, which you unscroll and read to the children, perhaps, or even a visitor dressed up.

claig · 06/01/2010 17:28

mrz, wow, they really are on the ball, no stone left unturned with them

madamearcati · 06/01/2010 17:35

But,not wanting to put words into the Ops mouth, I think that is how she says her DS was feeling- disppointed and let down-as though his Disneyland trip had been cancelled .To be fair I think perhaps the staff under -estimated the effect it would have on a child who was really really in to space stuff.

Hulababy · 06/01/2010 17:35

Peacocks - if done properly it shouldn't be. The alternativ is lots of little discrete lessons for children and IMO I don;t think that is right for infant school children.

mrz · 06/01/2010 17:47

Oh dear we do it with nursery too

mrz · 06/01/2010 17:53

By madamearcati Wed 06-Jan-10 17:35:29
But,not wanting to put words into the Ops mouth, I think that is how she says her DS was feeling- disppointed and let down-as though his Disneyland trip had been cancelled .To be fair I think perhaps the staff under -estimated the effect it would have on a child who was really really in to space stuff.
If I had been using this scenario and had such a child I would probably have involved him in the plan - as an expert advisor.

skidoodle · 06/01/2010 17:58

"My then-Y4 stepdaughter turned up at school last year to find that all the metal objects in her classroom had disappeared. Then they found a teacher's stripped car upon which was sprayed the words, 'I'm coming!'

They had just read The Iron Giant so there was a firm fictional context from which the pupils deduced what was happening and predicted what would happen next. They investigated, they detected and they reported. All of that gorgeous straddling of fact and fiction, fantasy and reality was easily accomplished. All rather lovely."

Wow, that sounds awesome.

And kind of scary too. What age is year 4? That would have terrified me. Actually it probably still would. But it sounds fantastic.

skidoodle · 06/01/2010 17:59

"or perhaps they will inspire a child to a career writing scripts or novels."

a career writing shit scripts and novels if that is the standard the child is supposed to aspire to.

GetOrfMoiLand · 06/01/2010 18:05

I have just asked dd's opinion on this.

She made a good point - she said that it would be a bit confusing for the kids if a week after the hoax (espoecially the ones using taped area, police, anxious looking teachers) and they were told it was a hoax, if there was a genuine emergency. She said yu shouldn't expect people in authority to lie to children on such a scale, and then expect them to believe and react to a genuine emergency scenario.

mrz · 06/01/2010 18:06

a career writing shit scripts and novels if that is the standard the child is supposed to aspire to.
no the child is expected to aspire to better without the use of profanity or faex

coldtits · 06/01/2010 18:17

Ugh

Ds1 (also year two) had a 'trip to spain' earlier this year. Cue pnic attacks until midnight because he didn't want to go in an aeroplane to a different country, and have to stay there without his parents

It's a fucking idiot thing to do to small kids. It really is. He was petrified of going, and wouldn't listen to me when I said it was a pretend game. TEACHER had said they were going and TEACHERS DON'T LIE. So I stood in front of him and Teacher and said "Mrs Teacher, please explain to Ds1 that the trip to Spain is a pretend game and you won't really be leaving Melton Mowbray, otherwise I will have to keep Ds1 home that day as he's incredibly upset."

Then he obsessed about it for a week until it was FINALLY over and done with. He was later quoted in the newsletter as saying "Next time I don't want to go anywhere"

I'd have hated this bullshit as a child too. Teachers should not tell lies.

SuperBunny · 06/01/2010 18:17

Only read the OP but it sounds like a really imaginative school with great staff who went to some effort to create a special educational day that they will remember.

I've done stuff like this before but nowhere near as good. Like Kitty's example, I told the class that the council wanted to sell our playing field and build houses on it. Cue lots of outraged children writing incredibly persuasive letters to the council in our English lesson. Unfortunatley, I forgot to mention that it was not true but done to help them think about the problem and write the brilliant letters that they did and had several letters from outraged parents the following day

Feenie · 06/01/2010 18:19

Right, that is crap, coldtits - out of order and completely inappropriate. But also different to the other scenarios described.

claig · 06/01/2010 18:21

GetOrfMoiLand, great point by your DD. It sounds like I am on her wavelength .
Way back in the thread I made a similar point about what would happen if a fire alarm went off for real, and the some children thought it was another stunt.

coldtits · 06/01/2010 18:23

But the teachers who went to a great deal of effort to organise it thought it was fantastic, Feenie. I spoke to Ds1's teacher privately and her face fell, she was adamant that the other children in the class were happy and excited. I don't doubt it but Ds1 wasn't, he was miserable. He was even more miserable for the week long obsessive run up when he had the teachers telling the class as a whole they were going to Spain, and reassuring him privately that they weren't, as he was trying to tell the other kids it was a pretend game and they called him a liar.

I really was so repulsed by the whole idea. Make believe is for children. Adults shouldn't be so self indulgent, and should have some consideration for the children who trust them to tell the truth.

MadameCastafiore · 06/01/2010 18:25

Bloody hell have you killed off the tooth fairy too?

You are a barrel of fun and laughter aren't you?

claig · 06/01/2010 18:26

coldtits, great example of how distressing some of these scenarios can be. The worrying thing is that presumably nobody had foreseen how distressed the children would be.

becaroo · 06/01/2010 18:32

My sons school did an alien thing the other week...pretended a space ship had crash landed in the school hall and that there were aliens in it. The room was pitch black apparently and my ds was petrified, they had to take him out of the room.

He still talks about it now....some kids jsut arent ready for this stuff. Parents (who know their dc best) should be told about this sort of thing before it happens and be given the option of asking their child not attend/be involved if they know it is going to distress them.

Schools just assume all kids are the same, dont they???
Sigh.....

Original poster
FlightAttendant · 06/01/2010 18:34

MadameC you ought to know that people with AS are NEVER FUN.

Coldtits, I am appalled by your story and very sorry for your ds.

The thing that is bothering me right now is that they are going to be showing off about this to ofsted, without any reference to the fact that several children were distressed by it.

It's all for show. I would rather they had a crap ofsted rating and a decent modus operandi.

OP posts:
WhereChaosTheoryRules · 06/01/2010 18:38

FA AS people arent fun - thought that was the nt lot? Doesnt ofsted speak to/give the parents opportunity to contribute their opinions and views?

coldtits · 06/01/2010 18:39

How is dealing with other children calling you a liar fun? How is not knowing whether or not you can trust any adult in the school again fun? How is being kept awake 3 hours past your normal sleep time because your worried, how is that funny?

FWIW, Ds1 hates the idea of the tooth fairy too. He leaves his teeth downstairs. he doesn't want fairies flying into his room while he's asleep.

GetOrfMoiLand · 06/01/2010 18:40

Flight - thought you were a bit battered at the start of the thread, and this isn't even AIBU!

WhereChaosTheoryRules · 06/01/2010 18:45

Coldtits - in this house father christmas is pretend he is men dressed up as the idea of father christmas. But why would a strange man be in the house to deliver presents and what about stranger danager? To be on the safe side he asked fc at school to leave the presents in the shed.

TBH if i discovered ds' school was doing did this for his year group (lower end of school - a little person in primary) then he would be removed. If necssary homeschooled for the event. he would not cope with it and for him it would not be appropriate.

SuperBunny · 06/01/2010 18:49

The trip to Spain and 'I'm Coming' and aliens in the hall do sound a bit extreme and thoughtless. Lots of people would be bothered by that including me - my DS would have nightmares for weeks.

ZephirineDrouhin · 06/01/2010 18:52

I'm with you, FA. Sounds bizarre, and I would definitely have explained the truth in this situation. Sorry your ds was so upset.

Still, he will at least have learnt the lesson that people in authority will sometimes go to great lengths to persuade us of the truth of things that are in fact completely made up, and that is probably a very useful thing indeed.