What do people think of this going on at my daughter's primary school?

[DoctorBeat]

Nationalism with some gender stereotyping thrown in for good measure? Girls bring in something sweet?! 😒

They have probably said princesses and knights as they know people are likely to have those costumes - which at least recognises that coming up with costumes is a hassle. OTOH there are many more interesting things you could be for a British theme – morris dancer, pearly queen, loch ness monster, shakespeare etc.

St George's Day is April 23rd!
Same as Shakespeare's birthday (and death day)

Good lord, this is some overthinking.

Savoury/sweet seems the easiest way to split food requests.

And the British thing? Well, this is Britain so...

If I lived in Spain would I feel offended or excluded by a Spanish festival? Of course not.

Decoy primary school? What's it a decoy for?

St Georges Day is April 23rd actually, and heaven forbid we should actually celebrate being English or as your DDs school is - British!

You are seriously making something out of nothing, if they don't split who brings what then there will just be 30 lots of cake or something daft like that.

There's nothing wrong with celebrating being British - we should do it more often, and kids learn very little about British culture at school, and even less about our own history.

Doctor!!!!! - I'm more interested in the school to be honest because that was my Primary school just over 30 years ago!!!!!

I now live about 1 mile from there...

Uhhh Amelia, don't be dissing my old school!!

Presume it is for St George's Day but probably easier to call it British than have parents question why no effort is made for St Andrew's or St Davids' day.

The food thing is a bit off but life's too short to take offence at everything. Why not simply suggest that it's rotated for next year so the boys can make choc rice krispie buns next year?

I'm not British and I wouldn't object to this. My DD's school celebrate plenty of other national holidays/religious festivals. In any case St George is a Greek martyr/saint and his feast day is widely celebrated elsewhere, particularly in Eastern Europe.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_George

St George's Day is April 23rd!
Same as Shakespeare's birthday (and death day)

OPs yes same b day as DH. Not sure where 24th came from although maybe something to do with the fact that is when we are celebrating it

There is nothing wrong with this at all and you are looking for something to be offended by rather than actually finding it offensive. Get a grip.

There's no issue withcelebrating 'Britishness'. It's likely they're due an Ofsted.

However, the sweet or savoury split is disappointing. Firstly because you may get a 50/50 split when what you actually want is more like 70/30. Secondly, and much more subtly, if 100 members of staff came out of a meeting having been told to split sweet and savoury along gender lines then 99% of them would ask girls to bring sweet. They probably couldn't tell you why and it won't be conscious but that's what would happen. I read a study along similar lines with puppies and kittens and over 90% allocated the kittens to the girls.
So just swapping it around, or better still making the split across key stages would go that little bit towards preventing such subconscious associations.

You could dress her as Vyvyan from The Young Ones.

I can't remember ever feeling excluded by Bastille Day when I lived in France

Can't believe people are offended by who brings in the sweet or savoury food, just ridiculous tbh. My DCs school do the same, and no it's not always set the same way - it's just a non-issue

As for national dress/traditional dress, how about tweed or a hand knit jumper?

How about sending the boys in Kilts? That's good traditional dress

I think it really depends on what the school intends by it, and I agree that their brief explanation isn't very encouraging. Personally, I'd go with assuming good faith, even if you don't feel like it, and then interpreting it however you want. The "famous Britons" theme covers quite a lot - and so if you want to send your kid in as Sophia Duleep Singh (suffragette) or Jayaben Desai (brilliant trade unionist) then do, and if the school doesn't like it they can bite you.

I guess to please all those people who will find a problem with everything everyone they could have found another way to split it, maybe KS1 bring sweet and KS2 bring savoury, depending on if they were doing it as one big school celebration, or by Year if they were doing smaller parties.

Knights and Princesses may not be exclusive to Great Britain but we do have them and have for quite a few years, doesn't mean the girls have to dress as Princesses, my gorgeous 6 year old DNephew would happily dress as a Princess and does regularly! I think it's lovely that they're doing anything British at all, as a PP said, Ireland celebrate St Patrick's day without managing to offend anyone, why can't we celebrate something British??? Jeez...

(Just to add: I have no problem at all with celebrating Britishness. I only have a problem if a very narrow band of experience is allowed to represent Britishness.)

LauraChant

You spoke to education type people who had their head in their hands at the primary schools' willful and stupid interpretations of their edicts on what exactly British values are.

Perhaps if these education type people actually ever came into schools and spoke to people who deliver their daft ideas rather caste aspersions on people doing their level best to interpret this impossible nonsense and teach it to 4 year olds in an accessible and memorable way.

How bloody dare they! They wouldn't have a clue.

Um maybe because boys aren't expected to be "savoury" but girls are expected to be sweet?

No, boys are expected to bring savoury food, not 'be savoury.' Etc.

You seem determined to be offended by this.

I think it's a shame celebrating "Britishness" had got tied up with nationalism. Given the date I'm really surprised they're not celebrating st George's day. We loved dressing up for st David's day in primary school.

The sweet/savoury girl/boy split is lazy I'd have preferred they didn't reinforce the stereotype.

NewStart, it's not offensive but as the study I read proved, most people, especially woman, if asked vaguely to organise such a split would opt for sweet=girls. It's just one of those subtle ingrained things that we've subconsciously picked up from previous generations probably from them doing double things like this.

"Good lord, this is some overthinking.

Savoury/sweet seems the easiest way to split food requests.

And the British thing? Well, this is Britain so...

If I lived in Spain would I feel offended or excluded by a Spanish festival? Of course not. confused"

This. WAy way overthinking it IMO

I do think Britpop followed by the London Olympics have helped enormously in the quest to regain the flag and Britishness from right wing fuckwits.