COMMENTING on the parents’ decision to move a child branded as overweight by her headteacher, a local education officer was quoted as saying that parents were free to choose any school which had space.
I know what she meant. In our overcrowded school, we can only employ thin staff and children are discouraged from wearing bulky sweaters and making sudden movements. We have knocked down walls, incorporated corridors in teaching areas. Our key stage 1 library is now a classroom, as is a soundproof studio with no natural light and all the charm of an air-raid shelter.
The prblem is that according to our local authority, we are not officially full, so we cannot turn pupils away and we are well down the list for extensions to our building. We have begged for help, but to no avail. Officers have visited us, expressed sympathy and hurried out to avoid asphyxiation.
This term, however, parents organised a petition and suddenly we have been offered a mobile classroom - accompanied by a terse note asking why we had not mentioned this problem before. Hooray for parent power!
I wonder if they can lay their hands on any spare teachers?
