Annoying news from the academic coalface has caused me to write another letter of complaint to the school.
Dear Headmistress,
My son, Redacted Name of Year 10, yesterday brought home news calculated to strike fear into the heart of any mother - that new uniform is being mooted. You have clearly not factored in the MRS NAME element here. An oversight must have occurred, causing you not to have read correspondence from me to your predecessor. I enclose a few samples of those letters, so that you may see what manner of parent you are up against. It was unkind of the school governors not to have alerted you to the dangers, and I will overlook your indiscretion on this occasion. But I do not expect - and will not countenance - any further outbreaks.
Redacted tells me that you intend to change the name of the school, the school motto and the uniform.
Changing the name of the school is unnecessary. It is the only school for 30 miles in any direction so what difference would it make? It's just 'School'. You are destroying any sense of continuity by doing this. Why, in my school days nothing changed and people wore uniforms which had been worn by their grandmothers, and still bore their ancestral nametapes - and the schoolmistresses, having taught the grandmothers, knew the relationship. Many a new bug was greeted with "Ah. Araminta Fortescue (or what ever name it was). I taught your grandmother. She was no better than she ought to have been. I shall be keeping a close eye on you, girl." Such abiding permanence made us feel tremendously secure. Actually I hated every minute of it, but it was very bracing.
As for the uniforms, I gather you have chosen PURPLE, and quasi-ecclesiastical purple at that. Really? Is there any nastier colour than ecclesiastical purple? What blows can fate have dealt you, that you should wish to take revenge by forcing self-conscious teenagers to go about the town wearing purple blazers with, if my information is correct, neon lapels? Ties, I grant you, are a reasonable requirement, but MUST they be teamed with pale grey trousers? And why are the shirts not to be white? It seems you feel the need to make your mark, but trust me, Headmistress, this is a method of doing so which has been tried innumerable times before by incoming Heads, and has always failed.
So:
a) Keep the old name and motto of the school as this will i) maintain tradition, and ii) prevent considerable sums being spent on new stationery etc. Use the money saved, to pay for getting the computers mended and to buy some textbooks.
b) Change the uniform if you insist, but let it at least be to black trousers, black blazers, and white shirts; and if you want a colour, retain the present navy blue by allowing the ties to have stripes of it. But, speaking as one whose wallet still shows the scars of having had to buy new P.E. kit when the last change took place, I could WEEP.
c) You can 'make your mark' by applying yourself diligently to improving standards to such a degree that my son secures a place at Oxford to read Greats.
My Accounts Dept will provide you with a modest invoice for this advice.
Yours sincerely,
Mrs G-AHLK Name
Dear Headmistress's Predecessor,
It appears that there has been an appalling breach of security at the school. My son R Name of Year 9 says that yesterday propagandists from the energy firm EDF gained access to pupils and were able to spend almost an hour addressing them with regard to the proposed development of the nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point. I presume that at no time were teachers aware of what was going on, as nothing was done to prevent it from continuing.
I suggest that you speak sharply to your on-site guards and tell them their vigilance levels are falling far short of what the parents expect. We should be able to send our children to school knowing that they will be kept safe by those to whom we entrust them – not offered up willy-nilly to any capitalist lackeys who wish to deceive them with their serpents’ tongues.
Fortunately my boy is intelligent enough to see clearly what their game was, and the outcome for us was no more than a most amusing conversation round last night’s dinner table, as he gave us a synopsis of what they had said and the cheap psychological tricks they had used.
But my concern is for other families whose children are less wise to the ways of these people.
I must ask you now to invite other speakers to the school to give different views of the energy debate, and then have your teachers lead sessions guiding pupils through the confusing and conflicting arguments, answering their questions and encouraging them to think about these matters for themselves. In this way, what is at present an embarrassing lapse could be turned to good use by furnishing pupils with a useful insight into the wickedness of the world in which they live.
I look forward to receiving your comments.
A Concerned Parent
It appears that there has been an appalling breach of security at the school. My son R Name of Year 9 says that yesterday propagandists from the energy firm EDF gained access to pupils and were able to spend almost an hour addressing them with regard to the proposed development of the nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point. I presume that at no time were teachers aware of what was going on, as nothing was done to prevent it from continuing.
I suggest that you speak sharply to your on-site guards and tell them their vigilance levels are falling far short of what the parents expect. We should be able to send our children to school knowing that they will be kept safe by those to whom we entrust them – not offered up willy-nilly to any capitalist lackeys who wish to deceive them with their serpents’ tongues.
Fortunately my boy is intelligent enough to see clearly what their game was, and the outcome for us was no more than a most amusing conversation round last night’s dinner table, as he gave us a synopsis of what they had said and the cheap psychological tricks they had used.
But my concern is for other families whose children are less wise to the ways of these people.
I must ask you now to invite other speakers to the school to give different views of the energy debate, and then have your teachers lead sessions guiding pupils through the confusing and conflicting arguments, answering their questions and encouraging them to think about these matters for themselves. In this way, what is at present an embarrassing lapse could be turned to good use by furnishing pupils with a useful insight into the wickedness of the world in which they live.
I look forward to receiving your comments.
A Concerned Parent
Dear Headmistress's Predecessor,
I am writing to let you know of
some issues my son R Name (Year 8) has been experiencing at school with
regard to his sleeping patterns. He has been finding it
increasingly difficult to sleep at school and on some occasions recently has
come home having had no sleep at all during the day.
The reasons he cites are noisy
and demanding teachers, inconsiderate classmates and lack of comfortable places
to sleep. Some classrooms have no bed provided and in the gymnasium pupils'
rest is frequently disturbed by athletes leaping about. The science
laboratories are plagued by constant explosions which wake one up and in the art
room one is perpetually being asked to create collages and do other sleep-incompatible
activities.
It has been proved that children
whose daytime rest is disrupted find themselves incapable of participating
profitably within the home environment. My son has been nodding off during our
family TV viewing sessions and last week he was unable to stay awake while my
husband read him a single sentence of Proust.
The situation is becoming
untenable. Can you assure me that the provision of sufficient chill-out zones within the school
will be your number one priority?
Mrs Name
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