The above couple live in Dulwich, South London and have committed the heinous crime of allowing their two children, aged eight and five; to cycle to school along the pavement. This is a distance of just one mile and the only road crossing is supervised by a lollipop lady (or lollipop person if you read the Guardian).
According to several reports in this weekend's papers, Alleyn's junior school (£12 000 per year if you would like your child to attend) believe that this is too dangerous and have apparently threatened to report the parents to social services unless they stop immediately. (What exactly would social services do? Take the children away maybe?)
It would make an interesting twist to the story if a pedestrian were to be knocked over by the two pedalling pupils. In any case, I suspect we will hear more about it.
4 comments:
I went to Alleyns.
In _my_ day the school, as it has a CCF, had an Armoury (including real SME rifles and two Brens) and a working 0.22 Rifle range.
And the Sub Aqua club had a compressor and kids could re-charge their own air tanks. [For those not in the know, an airtank is a dangerous thing!]
We all survived.
Now the same school wishes to ban cycling to school.
O tempora, O mores! [As a C in Latin O-Level has it]
;-)
How dare parents allow their children to simultaneously reduce the number of cars on the school run, get a bit of exercise and learn some road sense! Shocking.
Switching the sarcasm to low, do they not think Social Services have enough to do looking after genuinely "at risk" children? I cycled to school every day from age 5 to age 12. I seem to have survived all in one piece, despite the lack of a lollipop lady, or indeed a helmet.
If I was the parents, I'd be looking around for new school to give my £24k a year to.
Never ever tangle with Social Services they're dangerous to children and families.
We had experience back in the '80s when our daughter's school was organising a skiing trip to Austria. We considered there was little educational value in the trip (she was learning French!), she wasn't enthusiastic, and we were planning to go there for our summer holidays. I made the excuse that we couldn't really afford it, which was partly true if we were all to have our planned summer holiday.
A Social Worker came to see my wife, and when she discovered that my wife didn't go out to work, but preferred to be at home for the children and produce good home cooked meals, this young girl decided that my wife was neglecting our children by "not going out to work and earning money to provide for their wants" (note it was their wants, not their needs that she considered to be important). Threats followed about taking the children into care. Fortunately sanity prevailed at a higher level, but it shows the mindset of someone who undoubtedly by now will be, or have been, in a senior position.
Good job my sons school didn't know about his rock climbing eh!
Hang on a minute.........they got him interested in it in the first place........where do I complain?
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