Lucy Meadows

Food for thought. I don't read The Daily Mail but have seen articles by Richard Littlejohn before and he always seems spiteful and malicious. One wonders whether he really is so embittered, which would be sad, or just smart about what sells newspapers, which is also sad but in a different way.

How sad and unneccesary. I don't expecf any remorse from Richard Littlejohn though.

Such nastiness in the press, about a private individual who has done no wrong. How low can the sink? Will the recent post- leveson deal help? and when?

I'm deeply saddened about this. Littlejohn is nasty, always has been. I hope he loses his job, but it won't bring her back. I wonder whether Littlejohn is thinking about the devastation Lucy's death will have on her pupils?

I have to say that when I first read about this primary school teacher, I did wonder how the children at the school would cope with this. Would it not have been better to have started afresh at a new school. It does sound selfish to me.

I don't think the children would have needed to "cope" – they are very adaptable and don't acquire absurd preconceptions until they are older.

Children tend to be much more open-minded than adults, as you might expect. If no-one made a fuss at the school or treated it as anything other than normal, the children would accept that. I expect the kids were fine with it. I expect being told their teacher has died is far more upsetting for them, as when says.

Very young children could start to worry that their fathers could suddenly change into a woman. The little boys could get hang up about disappearing willies even. They would be too young to understand it.

Crossed posts, absent, saying the same thing.

Children have got minds that can harbour vivid imaginations.

Very young children don't have a problem with that. When my youngest brother was about three he asked if he could wear tights like my sister and me. My mum told him that she didn't think little boys wore tights. He said: Well, when I change into a girl can I wear tights?

Our family was boy, girl, girl, boy, boy. Bro probably thought everyone went through both stages. Sweet. No preconceptions to "get over".

Some kids have two parents of the same sex.

I can't see how the "preconception" that their teacher was a man can be called absurd.

Wtf has that got to do with it?!

That's not the preconception. The preconception is that he would remain a man. The evidence suggests this is not always the case.

To Bags that was.

Given how frequently little boys check the presence of their willies, they probably wouldn't worry for long. More seriously, I agree with Bags that the death of their teacher would probably have been far more distressing and, furthermore, that might lead them into being anxious about their parents dying. I know that something triggered a terrible fear of my parents dying when I was about seven – it might have been the suicide of a neighbour.

What is has to do with it is that children accept all kinds of things that older people (as witness, you, jings) often have difficulty with.

Let me make it clear. I have every sympathy with transgenders but a teacher should consider the children first.

And, what it has to do with it, is the idea that children who are well caredfor probably aren't too bothered about the gender of their carers.

Why? People have a responsibility to themselves as well.

If this had not been plastered over the newspaper in such a nasty way, there probably wouldn't have been a problem at the school at all.

So you clearly haven't every sympathy with transgenders, only some sympathy.

Of course children probably aren't too bothered about the gender of their teacher, but I would imagine they'd be very confused about a male teacher suddenly become a Miss.