Saturday 3 December 2011

Keeping mum about Keeping Mum

It is now nearly three weeks since I wrote to Charlie and Dom's school about Keeping Mum.

I had a prompt and civil initial response: an answerphone message from the head of RE assuring me that he would look into it.

Charlie has now had two RE lessons since and it has not appeared again. But apart from his teacher asking Charlie if he agreed with me (he said he did) we have heard no more about it.

I was expecting a reply to my letter (and one may yet come: I do understand that teachers are very busy) but I am pleased with the outcome anyway; no prevarication, no demonising of me or Charlie, no attempt to justify the use of an inappropriate film - simply putting the matter right and carrying on.

Of course, this is not a school with a Catholic Ethos...

2 comments:

Part-time Pilgrim said...

It's easier for them compared to a Catholic school. They don’t have to admit the film is inappropriate; they can just say that they are respecting your religious sensibilities and being inclusive. For a Catholic school to do the same they would have to first agree that they were wrong to show it in the first place. That is much harder and it is how the BP school has got itself into such a mess.
And it may be that your letter had no effect because the teacher had no intention of showing the whole video in the first place. If it was part of a module on the treatment of religion in the media, simply showing extracts would be enough and showing the entire feature is a waste of lesson time.

Ben Trovato said...

P-t P you are right of course. BP have dug themselves into a hole: however they have nobody to blame but themselves. It looks as though they had plenty of opportunity to put this right quietly.

But re your second point, see today's update.