What the Dickens?

I met with the wee ones’ Headteacher today and suffice it to say: my low expectations were not exceeded.

She quietly and politely stonewalled me, seeming surprised that The Youngest would be able to look at the lack of accountability for her coat being stolen and draw a line between that and her being made to feel like a criminal for eating a cereal bar at snack time. Instead she delivered the ol’ “I’m sorry she felt that way” and offered some “pastoral aid”. 

I thought I was quite reasonable in simply asking for an acknowledgement that it had been dealt with appallingly, that a quiet apology should be forthcoming to The Youngest and that in future they will contact me or her mum if they have concerns over the contents of her lunchbox and not direct their ire at The Youngest who had done nothing wrong, but apparently: “we don’t apologise to the children”. 

I had no idea that my children were being educated according to a Dickensian benchmark where fallibility and accountability hold no currency.

The meeting was a period of time that neither of us will get back and it is painfully obvious that nothing is going to change. Cereal Bar Hill is not one that I am particularly keen on dying on and I can see now why the Head was unable to get her teachers around the table in the lead up to last week’s strike. Who would want to show their hand to someone like this? Intransigence is not a good quality in a negotiation.

What of The Youngest then? Will she wipe the cereal crumbs of criminality from her lips, shrug her shoulders and make the most of her pastoral aid?

Who knows? We will simply have to wait and see if these future pages show whether The Youngest will turn out to be the hero of her own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else.

Today’s image is brought to you courtesy of a late evening collecting of The Eldest following her trip to London.