Thoughts on the SNP’s proposed P1 school bag scheme

[FunnyOrca]

What do you think about the SNP’s P1 bag idea?

I think the prototypes look ugly! My nephew down south got a school branded one from his local primary. It’s satchel style and looks smart. It’s not huge, fits his homework jotter, reading folder and water bottle.

I also think it’s pretty pointless! I’d rather have funded childcare from 9 months or strategies for teacher retention! 😭

Another bloody gimmick

More bloody money wasted!

Im sure the teachers will be thrilled with 30 matching bags!

Also, surely one of the lovely things is for kids starting P1 is to choose what bag they want and get a matching lunchbox or pencil case. This takes that away.

Typical SNP. Will waste any money if it gives them a headline. They govern with meaningless gimmicks and vibes and it’s getting us nowhere.

Waste of money. A pointless exercise in vote catching. I feel the same about the baby boxes.

I did wonder who had put together the list of contents as it includes pens. I mean, who gives a five year old with a white shirt a biro? The picture I saw also included a calculator which seemed a little premature for primary one. It seemed a little odd to me that there wasn't an eraser.

A ridiculous gimmick and complete waste of money

I remember when the Ukrainian war started, there was a call for baby boxes that people hadn’t used and they were inundated with them.

I did like the baby box tbh but school bags - is this based on evidence? Are there children without bags? Most schools I know of have tackled the issue of kids not bringing pens etc with keeping a central supply in classrooms. Bags & water bottles makes sense but again, what is the rate of kids coming to school without them?

It makes me so angry that people involved in education seriously think that this is what children need!

I agree that it is a pointless waste of money. I would rather they funded more teachers! Even if it is only one teacher it is still worth more than this pointless bag, 95% of which will end up in a charity shop. What happened to reduce recycle reuse ? The first part of which is reduce the amount of things you make/purchase in the first place!

The children that need the stuff will not bring it to school as a lot of parents way just don’t care

give it directly to the school for their supplies and then if kept on site the children will actully have the things to use !

It’s a strange one and I wonder where this idea came from?
Is it based on feedback from teachers that this is needed? Or based on research that this will make a difference to outcomes for children?

Is it to be given to everyone? I imagine many parents can afford to, and will still wish to, buy this themselves

It’s in line with the baby box I suppose. If all kids have the same at least no kid is bullied

Do kids have to take in their own stationary in Scotland? Ours don't in England, or at least any ones I know.

I think it's ridiculous and a complete waste of money.

Meanwhile my teacher friend (primary 4) goes to Home Bargains to buy materials for art for her class!

And all kids won't have the same. The kids will be nagging their parents for the expensively cool bags. I don't think the free bags will be popular other than for clothes pegs or saving plastic carriers....

Not in P1 they don’t. Also the Scottish government has made P1 play-based learning because they saw somewhere that did carefully directed play and thought it a good idea but missed out the ‘carefully directed’ bit.

Unless they make them compulsory (which would cause issues when they get lost) hardly anyone would use them. Middle class kids will be able to afford better and many deprived parents will be too proud to let their kids be seen dead with them.

Parents in our school will ditch these and give their kids labelled bags full of Smiggle stuff.

@Backtoschooloncemore I wonder how long it will be before there's much wringing of hands at the plummeting of standards since play based learning was introduced.

I think it’s nuts! Fair enough if families on income support etc get one but kids near me and DSis choose their own favourite design and water bottle. They don’t need anything else apart from a snack for playtime as all pencils etc are provided by the school, only a lunchbox if not having the free school lunches. Can you imagine the palaver at the end of the day if they all have the same bag 😂

Usual SNP gimmicks, would be better funding more Mental Health services for young people.

Identical bags are bad enough, but identical water bottles sounds like a health hazard. Remember these are P1s who can’t read, possibly don’t recognise their own name, wouldn’t bother looking if they did and probably barely remember which water bottle was theirs even if distinctively different.

There are so many better things the money could be spent on.

No it's all supplied. 😀

I don’t understand the need for this. Our school specifically ask pupils not to bring in their own stationary because it inevitably gets muddled up with their classmates and all the pencil cases take up desk space and they spend half their time fiddling about with them. They also request no school bags in P1 due to the amount of space they take up so they all just use a book bag which is provided by the PTA.

So they applied for them then didn’t use them?