Warwickshire school apologises to girl over culture day speech refusal
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cyvj289y788o
Posted by tylerthe-theatre
Warwickshire school apologises to girl over culture day speech refusal
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cyvj289y788o
Posted by tylerthe-theatre
49 Comments
> “We encourage students to consider wearing attire that reflects their nationality or family heritage,” it said.
It is concerning that people teaching children are not able to realise that this kid appears to have done exactly what they asked and also not realised that punishing her for being proud of being British would cause them a huge amount of trouble.
Too late. If you have these lapses of judgment as a school you can’t be trusted and I’m Indian.
They are only sorry that they got called out on it
An apology really doesn’t address the root cause.
The fact that the school was emboldened enough to punish a kid just for celebrating British culture is emblematic of a much wider rot in the education sector.
IMO it all rolls downhill from ‘decolonisation’ zealots in academia.
Given what happened, the speech she intended to give is ironic in the extreme.
Whoever decided to keep the girl out must get the sack
These days if you say you’re English, you’ll be arrested and thrown in jail.
“Mr Field said the school had now invited his daughter to come back in her dress and read a speech about why British culture was important to her.
But he told the BBC that she now “doesn’t want to wear the dress” as “she doesn’t feel comfortable”.”
Not surprised! A 12yo was told off for doing what she was told to do by teachers, and her Dad picked her up early. There’s no way it’s not already embarrassing for her among peers; to offer her to stand up alone with no-one else doing it and everyone knowing what happened? It’s not remotely the same and the teachers should know!
But I guess if they had that level of common sense they wouldn’t have kicked off about her being publicly British it in the first place.
Okay what was in speech though, I don’t care about the dress, that’s fine, but what did she want to say?
I read they also turned away farming kid in traditional flat cap & checked shirt, one with St George’s flag, and one with a Welsh flag. I did read that in a Lee Harris tweet though, so who knows.
I saw a post about this on tiktok yesterday and the comments were full of people saying this was just some made up story by the “far right” 🤦
They are half right though, it’s a fantastic advert to push more people to the right! A school in England kicking white English kids out for trying to be their own English culture on culture day… Farage won’t be able to believe his luck.
The school humiliated that poor girl over nothing. Shame on them.
Having read the likely AI generated essay that she took in I can’t help but feel that the teachers at her school feel into a trap, a trap with a big sign above it saying “This is a trap”.
Perhaps everyone in the school should wear the union jack dress for a day.
I don’t know for being in Britain and all.
The sad thing is that the right are being proved correct almost every day at this point. I feel like I was naive
How stupid can this school be.
What makes this even worse is that it gives the racist another bow.
I guarantee 99% of the people of colour/not British would not give a damn about her wearing the dress, but because of this stupid decision, they’ll get the backlash.
The vast majority of people who realise how stupid the school has been are not racist, far right wingers. They just know how stupid this decision has been.
The idiots on either side (the ones who said she couldn’t wear it, who, by the sound of the surname is British themselves, and the far right) have caused more of an issue that will be taken out on the ones in the middle who all think this is an absolute joke.
Woke teachers infected with ideology are the absolute worst.
There needs to be more than an apology. Someone working there felt hatred when they saw British kids show up representing British culture and wanted them gone
Their worldview is so ingrained that no one stopped them and they’ve only apologised, which is worthless as it didn’t even acknowledge what happened, once they were exposed to the world.
Bet they only apologised to the outrage that has gripped the media and even 10 Downing Street. It is absolutely dangerous what that school has done, and those that sent her home should be investigated, including the Governers. Are they trying to teach kids to hate their heritage and culture. Shocking
This sort of things happen everywhere..
There is a clip on YouTube.. a Hawaiian girl was graduating.. The School wouldn’t allow her do her graduation walk wearing traditional, cultural Hawaiian attire.. the flower thing they wear..
This entire incident really goes to show how wrapped up people are in identity politics.
This wasn’t really a “Gotcha” by the Dad, or some Machiavellian ploy to get the school to fall into his “Woke” trap. He probably just got the invite and thought, ughh, Union Jack dress.
Also, the argument “She deserved it because it’s not showing cultural practices” is utter nonsene. I’m sure other kids weren’t there in traditional Kimonos, or Lederhosen or Saris. Even if they were, does it really warrant making her get changed into a Uniform?
I feel a lot of people commenting here are too young to recognise Geri Halliwell’s Union Jack dress. It is pretty iconic from the Cool Britannia era of the late 90s.
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Not a big fan of her letter but then they went ahead and proved her point.
The only thing that surprises me about this is that the girl and her family received an apology; rather than being the subject of a brutal social media purity spiral accusing her of perpetuating a colonial and white supremacist mindset.
So the school only backed down because the parent took the issue to the media… checks out
Kid wasn’t punished, it was the dad who claimed that.
The kid had a speech that got a bit political and so was rejected.
This has been an obvious attempt by the dad to try and insight more stupid race conflict.
Something similarly silly happened here in Canada.
Halloween is a big deal here and most schools let kids dress up for school on that day and bring in treats, etc.
At my kids school a single family complained and said Halloween was against their religion. So they replaced Halloween with “Black and Orange” day, whatever that means.
Some kids were actually sent home because they missed the memo and turned up in a costume.
This is what happens when people think that “culture” and “diversity” means anything that isn’t white or British.
Glad the school apologised, although I’m sure that is largely down to the media storm they’ve walked into.
Lmao at the speech that this 12 year old surely wrote herself
School and teachers have demonstrated a shocking lack of judgement and self awareness. I’m so far away from a right wing, reform voting flag waver but it’s the national flag nothing in of itself a problem with it.
If you’re going to celebrate cultures then every culture should be celebrated, telling a kid that their culture shouldn’t be celebrated because they are British is almost as bad as the one’s who claim Britain does not have culture because the UK “Stole everything”
It’s not much of an apology. There is no acknowledgment of the wrong they did.
The Spice Girls being reinvented as iconic British culture is really just sad.
I truly believe the country as a whole really needs toget behind this young lady and her family
This is completely outrageous
Something doesn’t smell right with this my guess is that the day was meant to shine a light on minority cultures that don’t usually get much attention and the dad is a reform supporter who used his daughter as a pawn to stir up the hornets nest..
Public enquiry please.
Let’s get some legislators talking and see what we can do this fix this unpatriotic mess and stop it reoccurring.
Schools wondering why there is a rise in right wing politics in younger people and then do this?
Maybe I’m missing something from the story, but I’m assuming all pupils were invited as part of the day to discuss/make a speech on why they’d chosen their particular clothing and what it meant to them? Regardless, unless there’s a massive chunk being left out of what happened, it seems to have been handled poorly.
It’s a cultural awareness day. Everyone knows about UK culture if they are growing up in the UK. So is it fair now for every white British student in that school to give a speech about British culture? If that were allowed, there wouldn’t be time for anyone else to share about their unique cultures that people could actually learn a thing or two about. It’s like going to a cancer fundraising event and making a speech about the common cold.
Stupid Woke bullshit strikes again.
Shocked they actually apologised tbh.
I feel some of this issue may lie with what ‘cultural dress’ means, obviously this would mean an outfit specific to the culture of the country. I wouldn’t say a union jack flag is indicative of this, however I do think the mistake could easily be made.
To me British cultural dress would be a kilt, a Kingsguard uniform, morris dancers outfit, suit tails, even something like a miners uniform something that is identifiable as part of British culture or your areas heritage. A flag not so much and that would be the case for any country
I live in near the school. Everyone has been talking about how stupid this is, even the teachers at my school.
Very interesting article. Contains the father’s seemingly baseless claim that the school didn’t read the speech, but describes the incident as the pupil not being allowed to give the speech – not being stopped from wearing her outfit which in itself is pretty clearly celebrating Britishness.
Mentioned that the pupil was picked up early, leading people to conclude she was sent home, but never explicitly says why she was picked up early or confirming that the school sent her home.
And then at the end, contains the text of the speech which seems explicitly to reference the right wing idea that being British is being made taboo and, more importantly, the idea that the school was somehow suppressing British identity, an idea that is not evidenced at all except for this speech not being allowed – it would obviously be circular to suggest that the speech being stopped proves the point, the speech could have just as easily have been prohibited because of the baseless accusation that the school was somehow suppressing British identity.
My daughter had a culture day like this at her school, which is pretty diverse being as it is in London. One person showed up in an England football shirt. They were photographed and celebrated just like everyone else.
Most teachers tend to be left wing, and given how desperate we are for teachers, it isn’t a surprise that morons get into the profession and do this crap.
The world’s biggest nothing story just keeps on giving.
Kinda a shame the most culturally significant dress people can think of is just a Union Jack and not any traditional clothing from England, Scotland, or Wales.
It’s now like 4 days since this gammonbait story came out, and still the comments are full of people who didn’t read the racist dog whistle essay her dad wrote to set her up.