Girl in Union Jack dress sent home on diversity day

Why shouldn’t we be proud to be British and show our flag.

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.

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?

Some, if not all, of the non-white children in her class will probably be British citizens, born and brought up here, whatever their ethnic origin and religious affiliation.

Galaxy in the 90s/00s children with SEND were placed in corridors outside of the classroom - it's never been inclusive for some children and shouldn't have been suggested for children whose needs couldn't be met properly in mainstream. I think this was pushed by the Labour government at the time to save money (and I voted for them at the time) They took decision making too far from a report by a very well known elder female politician whose name escapes me atm but she even disagreed with what was happening. They closed all the MLD schools where I lived at the time and this continued or well over a decade

Special schools have always worked towards proper inclusion. I know people will disagree with me but I haven't ever witnessed otherwise

Sorry, Silvergirl has already covered this point.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Exactly that.

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.

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.

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?

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...

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

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?

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........

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.

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.

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.