Quite pissed off about this, am I being daft?

[FlightAttendant]

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.

cleanandclothed yes the school in the link told the children at the end of the first day but I know a number of others who did similar themes and kept up the story for a week or more and strangely parents thought it was a fantastic topic and eagerly joined in with the story.
A colleagues son appeared on the BBC to read the news report he had written when his school did something similar.

Flight it was not a practical joke it was a serious and valuable learning experience even though you fail to see or accept that. Could you other issues with the school be influencing the way you view the obvious enjoyment your son got from the day?

what a shame adults lose that awe and wonder that young children possess.

Good posts Hulababy.

I think some people may be over-thinking all this. It seems the real face of 'PC GornMad' to me, wanting every school project to have a terms of reference that encompasses every aspect of offereing fictional material and experiences to children, restricting the curriculu to the safest most predictable excercises...

The most likely outcome of this particular excercise is that the children become v aware that they are in a role-playing scenaio...much as many children who willingly enter into belief of father Christmas while deep in ther hearts knowing it is not real. This is something children are able to do mcuh better than adults, it is a part of childhood development and delight.

I would not have been happy at what the OP has described.

I like skidoodles comments
"Imagination and pretend play are wonderful for children.

Of course these children aren't using their imaginations, they are believing untruths elaborately constructed for them by their school. They don't know it's a pretence, so they're not involved in pretend play.

Isn't reality interesting enough for the morons at this school?"

I would have told my DS the truth about this as well.

How very dismissive to write people off as 'morons'.

Meant to say i would tell DS the truth as would prefer him not to grow up gullible and believe any load of rubbish he is told.

The real, natural world is an inexhausable source of wonder and awe for all ages - you don't need to fake it.

Agree, skidoodle summarises the difference well.

Oh whatever happened to imagination

May I just respond to the OP?

FA I completely agree with you, what a stupid waste of time and energy. The education system is so arse over tit.

Are you anywhere near Leicester?

Could you take him to the Space Museum where there is real space junk to make up for it?

I'd think it brilliant if my son's primary did this. How fab. FA, you said in your original post that your son was really into it. Isn't that fantastic? You also admitted it was you who made him upset. And who's to say that the next day at school as they did project work on it that they wouldn't have made it clear it wasn't real. Where's everyone's sense of wonderment and fun gone. It's creative isn't it? I'd love to have been taught like that.

Mrz- I think imagination is very unfashionable! Certainly amongst my children's friends. They think it's lame. They'd much rather play computer games,football and gossip. Children have become very cynical.

Sorry flight but I do think this was a brilliant idea! Very creative.

They are doing it with good intentions, and it has some positive aspects, but there are also negative aspects. I think on balance the negatives outweigh the positives.

Some children will think it is great fun. But for many, the sense of awe and wonder that they initially felt, will be brought crashing down when they realize that they have been deceived by the teachers that they look up to and admire. Some of the older children who will quickly realize that it is false and will possibly tease and frighten the younger ones, telling them that they have seen aliens hiding in the bushes etc. Some of the more credulous children will be made to look foolish in front of their peers by the children in the know.

mrz's link contains the sentence
"Tom and two other Year 3 teachers planned to create an alien spacecraft crash landing on their school field and see where it took them". I think the problem with it is the experimental "see where it took them" aspect. At first sight it looks like an exciting idea, but I don't think that they have thought through the possible negative ramifications.

They could have achieved much of what they set out to, carrying out role play etc. and using imagination to create what if scenarios, having first explained that it was a fantasy. Agatha Christie murder mystery weekends where everyone gets into character are still a lot of fun, even though people know that they are not real.

Going by the split in views on here, it would be a fair bet to assume that not all of the teachers at the school thought it was a good idea. FlightAttendant raises a good point about one of the teachers who had doubts
"Which begs the question why didn't she say this at inception stage?"
She may not have felt comfortable questioning the policy since it looks like OFTSTED thinks this is a great idea. Sometimes a groupthink mentality prevails.

YANBU
What a stupid idea -don't they think that half the kids are going to be terrified of something like that dropping on them or their loved ones and the other half are going to feel betrayed when they have been lead on.
The school could have definitely used this to intoduce the topic,and been shown the object ,but should have been told before the end of teh lesson that it was staged.

Agree with Acinonyx.

And as far as imagination goes, my children have great imaginations. They could 'imagine' something like has been described and enthusiastically play along with it. However, to be presented with it as a true situation, that's nothing to do with imagination, it becomes a situation to deal with. Or if they found it exciting and not frightening they would probably be disappointed in the same way that FA son was.

Well said Claig.

'what a shame adults lose that awe and wonder that young children possess.'

Hang on a moment please Mrz.
That's a bit presumptuous really. I don't consider I have lost any of the 'awe and wonder' I experienced as a child.

I draw the line at feeling it at some manipulative ploy which although naively designed to enthuse children actually confuses them, and will upset some of them once they uncover the deception.

I fully accept that the school's intentions were great. (though yes they do have a bit of an ofsted obsession ime)

My previous worries about the HT do not influence my feelings on this.
I have no idea if it was even her idea.

I simply think that manipulating the children into believing something very intensely exciting and wonderous for them is a dangerous game to initiate and that it could have been handled far, far better.

I don't think my telling him in itself was upsetting. I think the realisation that he had been tricked was.
I might be wrong of course.

And I didn't call anyone a moron, I don't use that word.
I don't like any type of manipulation unless it is to bribe a small toddler to stay in a buggy with the judicious use of chips grapes.

i still remember the 'sellotape flower' we found in our school garden! our teachers said it was very rare and we also had reporters come in and did a whole project on it which included growing our own plants and looking at roots etc the 'flower' even grew as we measured it daily and had to record rain fall etc too..........fond memories and im not at all sad the school lied to me!

i also remeber the day we turned up at school to find a whole section of playground roped off cos of 'mysterious foot prints in snow!' we spent weeks investigating those strange paw prints and taking casts of them and comparing them and looking at animals that live in cities etc.

Juule you are right and very sensible.

The thing you said about it being presented not as a fantasy or story but as the truth, strikes a chord.

I think when something like this becomes believed by any child enough to necessitate the lie being continued and elaborated on, it starts to go wrong.

I don't think the HT has any intention of letting them know it's not real.

They ahd a reporter and everything but, oh what a surprise it wasn't on the news. That's waht some of the other kids were saying.
I will try and elicit some opinions from the other mums later and find out how their children reacted.
It might just be that the more sensitive ones were upset. The thing is ds would have been THRILLED to have a real 'robot' as he called it, at school, I mean seriously hyperventilating about it - and the let down was just too huge for him.
In hindsight I wish I could have found another way to prepare him, I really don't know what would have worked best.

Gothdetective, thankyou for your suggestion, sadly not near to Leics but we did do the science museum last summer...and I showed him the astrodome on the internet, which apparently they are having in school this term. He liked the look of that.

I am particularly bad at playing along with jokes and am often the last to understand or catch on. However I do feel it was manipulative of the school.

kittybrown do you see that as a positive development or should we try to give them some "magic moments" just to fire it up ever so briefly?

?Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.?

juuule do you (or the OP) know for a fact they were presented with it as a true situation?

Lots of ridiculous, hysterical DM-type over reaction on this thread.

Claig, r.e. "Some children will think it is great fun. But for many, the sense of awe and wonder that they initially felt, will be brought crashing down when they realize that they have been deceived by the teachers that they look up to and admire. Some of the older children who will quickly realize that it is false and will possibly tease and frighten the younger ones, telling them that they have seen aliens hiding in the bushes etc. Some of the more credulous children will be made to look foolish in front of their peers by the children in the know."

It's a case of knowing your school and your children well enough, I think. My class (y5) would adore this kind of activity, and would also have loved it when I taught them in y2.

I can't see any of the reactions you describe happening in our school.

Yes I think I have mentioned that it was presented as the truth several times on this thread, Mrz. I have zero problem with the encouragement of imagination but to go sof ar as burning a tree - well perhaps not.