Girl in Union Jack dress sent home on diversity day

Primrose53

I am actually glad that I probably won’t be around in 20 years time. It horrifies me what this country is turning into.

There was a time when most of us took great pride in our country and our flag. In the late 60s and early 70s I worked in a very busy gift shop during school hols and weekends. All the Union Jack giftware just flew out of the shop. If I had a pound for every UJ tea towel I sold I would be mega rich.

Now we are hardly allowed to mention it. 😥

You can mention your flag and wave it all you like. Nobody is stopping you?

A flag is not not a costume reflecting your culture, it's well....a flag.

I am surprised to find that infant and primary school provision has improved greatly over the last 40 years. It’s easy to get caught up in the hype surrounding Bilton School but overall, education seems to be in a better place. Just as well as quite a few prep schools are shutting down…. Another government intervention.

The fact remains that this girl was excluded from the School Celebration Day, and later an unreserved apology was been posted by the Academy for the mishandling of the 'incident. This would not have happened had the father invented or exaggerated the situation.
No doubt internal investigations are being conducted but this Culture Celebration Day seems to have been ill-conceived and poorly delivered.
I have heard of two racist accusations in local schools recently, both disproved, where the schools over-reacted and had to retract the accusations and apologise. Frightening.

I am actually glad that I probably won’t be around in 20 years time. It horrifies me what this country is turning into.

There was a time when most of us took great pride in our country and our flag. In the late 60s and early 70s I worked in a very busy gift shop during school hols and weekends. All the Union Jack giftware just flew out of the shop. If I had a pound for every UJ tea towel I sold I would be mega rich.

Now we are hardly allowed to mention it. 😥

valdavi

I have always had hearing loss but not severe enough to affect my speech noticeably. I didn't go to a School for the Deaf but in the 90's (when I later looked into it) at such schools, the range of qualifications at GCSE was really limited - only 3 or 4 subject taught.
I needed 9 O levels & got them, but if I had been in a special school I wouldn't have had the opportunity.And changing at secondary level would've been harder than being mainstream from the start for me.
Disability Rights groups were campaigning for inclusion - the reason being that life isn't segregated and specifically, work isn't segregated.
The resources that would be needed to support childrens' special needs in a mainstream setting was probably always under-estimated but it wasn't primarily a money saving exercise.

And that’s fine isn’t it? You were able to access education and achieve, which is what inclusion is supposed to be about

Doodledog

What has the fact that she is a 'Grade A' student got to do with it?

I don't see why the incident should define her throughout her school career - if it does it will be because her father went to the press with the story, though. I wonder whether he was behind the speech in the first place?

I agree that British culture is valuable, and lament the fact that far right groups have hijacked the Union Jack (and the England flag in particular - the flags of the other home nations are still seen as acceptable), but I'd be interested to learn whether there is more to this than meets the eye.

I totally agree. I did feel something was a bit off when I read it yesterday. Het father has done more harm than good.

Crossstitchfan

It’s fast getting to the stage where nearly everyone will be scared to say anything at all! It’s frightening that we can all be held hostage to some people’s weird and warped ideas.
I think part of the problem is that so many people take offence for the sake of it and see trouble where there actually is none.
Why can’t we all just get on with our lives without looking for trouble, or being on the receiving end of it?

👏👏👏👏👏👏.

We once collected our granddaughter from school she was 7/8ish, all the children were wearing something red, I asked her teacher why.
It was “racism in education”day (RED) the teacher said it was important to raise awareness.

Once in the car I asked GD about it she said it was for all the brown and black people, I asked her about the brown and black peoples she knew and if they would be happy about it, she thought for a while and said she didn’t know any.

I reminded her of her father, uncles, cousins and family friends who were brown or black……. Oh yes I forgot she said!

Children do not see colour.

I have always had hearing loss but not severe enough to affect my speech noticeably. I didn't go to a School for the Deaf but in the 90's (when I later looked into it) at such schools, the range of qualifications at GCSE was really limited - only 3 or 4 subject taught.
I needed 9 O levels & got them, but if I had been in a special school I wouldn't have had the opportunity.And changing at secondary level would've been harder than being mainstream from the start for me.
Disability Rights groups were campaigning for inclusion - the reason being that life isn't segregated and specifically, work isn't segregated.
The resources that would be needed to support childrens' special needs in a mainstream setting was probably always under-estimated but it wasn't primarily a money saving exercise.

Galaxy

So does the nature of the day exclude some children then by that criteria.

So it would seem, and welcomed by so many apparently........

It’s fast getting to the stage where nearly everyone will be scared to say anything at all! It’s frightening that we can all be held hostage to some people’s weird and warped ideas.
I think part of the problem is that so many people take offence for the sake of it and see trouble where there actually is none.
Why can’t we all just get on with our lives without looking for trouble, or being on the receiving end of it?

So does the nature of the day exclude some children then by that criteria.

Would those that think the Union Flag dress was unsuitable please give suggestions of what they think an English girl could have worn to illustrate her traditional cultural dress?

Well, that's the rub, isn't it? We don't have an English 'traditional national dress', do we? A flag dress is neither traditional, nor is it national dress. Nor is it commonly worn by anyone. And the Union Jack isn't English, it's British...

Union flag dresses were part of the youth movement Cool Britannia of 30 years ago. We had Britpop, British movies - Four Weddings, Nottinghill, Sliding Doors, sport - Euro 1996 and so on.

I’d say that makes the fashion of the time part of the culture of the UK, as much as Teddy Boys and crinolines were once part of our culture.

Would those that think the Union Flag dress was unsuitable please give suggestions of what they think an English girl could have worn to illustrate her traditional cultural dress? Or was this really just an event for people with non-English/British heritage, and she should have come in school uniform? In which case it's hardly inclusive of everybody.

The Conservative government of the 1990s prioritised the integration of children with special needs into mainstream schools through policies like the Education Act 1993.

Funding during this period was often limited, with a focus on local authority budgets and some targeted grants for SEN. However, critics argued that resources were insufficient to fully support inclusive practices, leading to disparities in provision.

Under Tony Blair’s government, there was a significant increase in funding and policy initiatives to promote inclusion.

The Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001 and the Every Child Matters framework (launched in 2003) aimed to improve support structures, which included increased funding for SEN support services, specialised staff, and resources.

The government introduced some additional funding streams specifically aimed at local authorities to improve inclusion and support for children with learning needs.

Overall, investment increased but was often debated in terms of sufficiency relative to the growing demand for SEN support.

A flag is not really cultural by the way, it’s more a nationalistic symbol

Exactly that.

they shouldn't have been sent home though should they?, it's quite clear they could come dressed as their nationality - it's quite open ended. Not everyone has a brain the size of Luxembourg or even the national dress of it

Well, maybe MaizieD - but maybe (if they had been sent home) they understood why?

I think it might have been Mary Warnock who I am thinking of
welcome to my brain

It isn't actually a criticism of schools, I fully understand some of the reasoning behind these decisions, but I have very mixed feelings about it.

Thank you, REKA for the letter.

Since when has a Union Jack dress been a 'traditional cultural dress'?

It would also be good to have some links to the stories of other children being sent home...

According to Chatgtp it was the girl's father who said that another pupil had been sent home for being dressed as a farmer, and, that there were no credible reports of a girl with a Welsh flag being sent home.

I would have expected that the parents of those children would have surfaced by now had the the reports been true.

A thought comes to me after writing my last post. Respect for the flag would have once been seen as a truly small 'c' conservative view; one as likely to be held by a centrist Labour voter as a Conservative one.

It really does show that Reform, with all their egging on of this child, are nothing to do with Conservatism. They try to paint themselves as "populist" i.e., a party that represents the interests of ordinary people against the perceived elite or establishment. But as we see both here, and in the American party they ape, they are actually a party for the elite an exceptionally wealthy.

I agree Jane. I see excellent work with regard to inclusion within schools but for some children it just doesn't work.
Without giving too much detail Maizie I work for an organisation that provides advice on SEND to schools.

MaizieD

Galaxy

Yes, I was mentioning elsewhere that specialist 'hubs' within mainstream schools are now very common to cope with the number of pupils with additional needs in mainstream, I personally don't see how this is inclusive or meeting the needs of the children.

Are you a teacher, Galaxy?

Lots of teachers will agree with Galaxy

Sorry, Silvergirl has already covered this point.