Dear Parents and Friends of the School,
It’s always unsettling for our young people when our whole community comes repeatedly under the national spotlight in high-profile criminal investigations. So I would first like to pay tribute to all the staff and students who have struggled so nobly to try to keep our school on an even keel during another difficult few weeks.
The London-based media have always been keen on portraying remote coastal communities as a bit stupid, feckless and feral. Given the especially unfortunate sequence of events in our own particular town they have predictably gone a step further and sought to criminalise our whole community.
Broadchurch born and bred
The impression the world is given is that everyone in this town (every male, especially) is weak, secretive and immoral and that our relationships are consequently more bleak, brutish and loveless than those experienced by the average Broadchurch seagull.
The truth, of course, is that most of us living here are completely honest, decent, intelligent people. (I, for one, am proud to say that I am a Broadchurch man, born and bred.)
We are, in the words of that blonde woman up in Westminster, not bigoted simpletons but simply “ordinary working-class people”. We are “just about managings” rather than just-about-murderings.
(Mind you, sayin’ that, anyone ‘round here who starts going on again about setting up one of her “free” friggin’ “grammar schools” and I’ll blow their bloody brains out.) [Sorry, I lost it just for a moment there. Carol, take that last bit out please, darlin’, before you put this online.]
Anyway, despite some in our community’s very occasional lapses into heinous crime, we intend in this new term to do all we can at the school to encourage our youngsters to take pride in their local heritage and challenge the media stereotyping.
I know this is a matter that our prestigious academy chain, Midsomer Mergers, is very keen to help us with. Our school is bristling with youthful energy, creativity and talent and we shall be doing all we can to present to the world the “brighter face of Broadchurch”.
Admittedly, it’s not going to be easy. A culture of hostility and negativity has inevitably spread through the town over the past few years.
For instance, in line with many other cash-strapped headteachers, I recently sent a letter home to all parents requesting a voluntary contribution to school funding.
Keeping tabs
Unfortunately, this appeal does not appear to have been well received. The amount collected is still in single digits - and I am sorry to report that a number of the replies have been less than positive, in some cases rather worse than that. Some of those replies are now in the hands of the police.
I have also received a number of unkind emails from parents demanding that their child should no longer be taught by kindly science teacher, Mr Winterman. In fact, if I had a pound for every time I’ve heard him described as “creepy” the said budget problem would disappear overnight!
All right, Mr W may have been a little unwise to snoop on his ex-wife by getting a former student to install spyware on her computer, but who among us hasn’t kept tabs on one of our ex-wives now and again, let’s face it? I certainly have.
The road ahead is not going to be a smooth one, particularly for students about to take their exams.
Given the last few months, I don’t hold out too much hope for our “Progress 8” score this time round, though it would be nice if the “Broadchurch Echo” didn’t opt again - come results day - for that cheap “Regress 8” headline coupled with that picture of about 50 of our kids all giving the thumbs down.
We also need to have a think about changing the school motto - I can’t help but think that “Life’s a beach” needs a rethink.
Stephen Petty is head of humanities at Lord Williams’s School in Thame, Oxfordshire. For more from Stephen, see his back catalogue
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