Bedclothes

Unable to find the words to explain to her Mummy that she hadn't removed the pillowcase from Holly's pillow, Rosie called, "Mummy! You haven't unpeeled Holly's cushion!"

The End Of Our Tether

Mrs Maryon-Davies
Chair of the Board of Governors
Streatham and Clapham High School
Senior Department
42 Abbotswood Road
Streatham,
London, SW16 1AW

21 June 2006

Dear Mrs Maryon-Davies

We wish to complain in the strongest possible terms about the appalling way in which our daughters, Holly in particular, have been treated by the school this year. This unacceptable combination of coercive management methods, inappropriate modelling of rude and aggressive behaviour by staff, total disregard of Holly’s needs as a dependent twin, and refusal to adhere to strategies which we have made every effort to devise jointly with Little Trees Staff and Miss Burke have led to periods of aggressive behaviour from Holly which have ultimately led to your letter dated June 20th in which you exclude her from class for four days and state that further such behaviours would result in permanent exclusion. With this letter you enclosed your exclusion policy. We would like to point out that sharing this policy with us at this late stage is a little late in the day.

We ask that you consider the following:

1. We accept that Holly has been rude to staff and that she has been physically aggressive towards other children. However, at no point has a single staff member indicated to us a willingness to accept that context may play a role in this behaviour. Neither of our daughters behave this way outside of school. At home there is occasional bickering, and occasional hitting, which responds excellently to time out and return to the original situation. We do not see the behaviours observed at school anywhere else – including at parties with school peers, social events with other children, or in structured contexts such as gym club or swimming lesson. It only occurs in school and yet we have been accused by Mrs Short of failing to work with staff to address the problem. Staff attributions for Holly’s behaviour have included our own parenting, her own character, and psychiatric/developmental disturbance. At no point has the school looked to how it responds to incidents, or the context in which they occur. We have put much effort into talking to both girls about appropriate and inappropriate strategies for angry situations, we have stood alongside staff decisions and responses to naughtiness despite often feeling that it was inappropriate and bullying, and we have requested and attended meetings with staff at which we have jointly devised strategies for management – our own contributions being based upon a combined twenty years of experience in clinical psychology, child psychiatry and behavioural sciences. These strategies have been implemented by staff in a limp and desultory fashion. Despite this certain things have worked but, rather than carry them on, they have been stopped for reasons that are unclear. When these target behaviours have returned, nobody has thought to recommence these strategies. Despite it being clear that Little Trees has failed to integrate Holly successfully, and that she consequently hates being at school, removing her from the classroom has been the immediate knee-jerk response, often for hours at a time in a different building with one-to-one attention and taking part in interesting activities such as completing puzzles, reading stories, or looking at tigers on the internet. Obviously this rewards the target behaviours and increases their frequency. This is evident from this term, when the entire first half was incident-free (in terms of serious aggression as defined by meetings between staff and ourselves), while Holly’s first incident since the spring term was met with a happy afternoon with Mrs Jordan. Unsurprisingly there were more incidents shortly thereafter, each potently reinforced by the school.

  • This should have been predicted.
  • This behaviour was reinforced by a misguided management response.

This is a gross failure of simple behavioural management. We consider it to be not only negligent, but positively harmful to the immediate well-being and future behavioural repertoire of our daughter. In short, while Holly is responsible for the choices she makes, she is four years old, and your school has systematically trained her to be physically assaultative in order to be relieved of the stresses of being in a situation she hates, with adults who frighten her.

2. Holly was excluded for two days last term as a result of similar behaviour. Nobody discussed with us strategies for reintegrating her. Nothing seemed to be planned. No effort was made. The expectation was that she ought to have learned from the experience and rejoin her class humbled and muted. Of course in her eyes she was removed from class and presented with a long weekend – all the more valuable for not having to share half of it with her twin sister. It did not work. Now she has been excluded again, this time for four days, and we are dismayed that your rather threatening letter makes no indication of a reintegration strategy. When Holly’s Father met with Miss Burke on the day of the exclusion, reintegration was not raised for twenty minutes until he raised it himself. We meet with her tomorrow. Hopefully a plan will be in place. We are disappointed that your exclusion policy appears to make no provision for reintegration either.

  • We do not see that exclusion can achieve anything positive without measures being taken to facilitate the reintegration of a pupil.

3. Your exclusion policy states that

“In most cases, before excluding a child, strategies such as working with parents, school sanctions, modifications to the curriculum, pastoral support programme, should be tried.”

  • We are not aware of curriculum modifications having been made.
  • While we are aware that Holly finally met someone responsible for pastoral care last week, we are not aware of any significant programme being put into place. Indeed, the contact with the Head of Pastoral Care was demonstrably misguided and harmful.
  • We do not consider that we have been worked with, despite our efforts to work alongside the school:
    • After a staff/parent meeting regarding Holly’s behaviour, it was agreed that removal from the classroom would be counter-productive. Within less than a fortnight Holly was excluded for two days.
    • Despite being told shortly after the Christmas break that Mrs Short had comprehensive data on these incidents, and despite being assured we would be privy to that data in order to process it effectively and ensure that responses to incidents were not based upon hearsay or attitudinal changes within staff but upon hard fact, we are yet to see anything.
    • When we have jointly agreed to programmes of rewarding appropriate behaviour in order to reduce that which is inappropriate, we have personal experience of staff inconsistency, failures of staff to implement it according to the agreed plan, and staff insisting after the event that it is unworkable and suggesting strongly that it be stopped.
    • When we requested a meeting with Miss Burke at the start of the spring term we heard nothing for a number of weeks, and then received a letter giving us 24 hours notice to meet her urgently to discuss Holly’s “unacceptable” behaviour. This was precisely what we had been requesting. Evidently the failure to joint work is not ours but the school’s.

4. Your exclusion policy states that

“When exclusions exceed one day, work should be set to be undertaken at home and followed up on the pupil’s return to school”

  • We were not advised of the work that Holly would have been completing during this week.
  • We were not even given her reading book, which has come home every other day this term.

By points 3 and 4 above, we believe that you have not adhered to your own policy of exclusion.

We shall refrain from cataloguing here the myriad examples of dismissive attitude, neglect of care, and frank bullying of small children that we have witnessed ourselves and that we have heard reported from other concerned parents.

We request that this letter be considered extremely seriously. We have serious concerns not just for our own daughters but for the effect on all pupils of Little Trees that this appalling treatment can cause.

We are refraining at this stage from copying this letter to the Independent Schools Inspectorate. We believe our concerns do merit their being informed, but are willing to acknowledge that our concerns may be properly addressed before that becomes necessary.

We look forward to hearing form you.

Yours sincerely

Tamsin and Jim Cromwell

cc:
  • Miss Burke, Head of Junior Department, SCHS, Wavertree Road, London, SW2 3SR
  • Mrs S Mitchell, Head of School, Streatham and Clapham High School, 42 Abbotswood Road, London, SW16 1AW
  • Elizabeth Elias, Chairman of the council, The Girls’ Day School Trust, 100 Rochester Row, London, SW1P 1JP

Birthday

Yesterday was our four and a half birthday party and today we finally managed to open our presents.

Ambition Pt I

Holly would like to be a lollypop lady. Why? "Because I love lollipop ladies and mans". (Also, she is keen to get a yellow coat from the council.)

Driving

We saw lots of policemen on the Tooting Bec Road today. Holly said "I can see lots of policemen standing looking at all the cars. They are looking for people who are driving with bad manners."

Wee

Holly has a wee-wee infection. "We did take my wee to the dentist*, but we didn't carry it in my minnie. We did carry it in a little pot!"

*Doctor

Pets

We have our first pets! We have two male guppies which, despite being chaps, are called Rose and Emily. We agreed on the names very quickly, but are yet to agree on which one is which.

Hide and Seek

Daddy and Holly were hiding and Rosie put her unique spin on it.

"8..9..10. Coming! Ready or not!" Walks to nearest grown-up. "Excuse me, I am playing hide and seek with my Daddy and Sister. Can you see them anywhere please?!"

Addendum

Daddy was relating the story below within earshot of Holly when she corrected the cultural reference. "No Daddy... Stop in the name of Plod!"

So that's that then...

Apropos of nothing

Holly crossed the road tody, got to the other side, stopped, and said "STOP! In the na-ame of love...!"

Dentist

We had a dental check-up today and fought over who would be first! We looked very growed up in the dentist's chair and were very patient while he counted our teeth.

Storytelling

We were telling stories today so Daddy could make books and we could draw the pictures. Here they are.

Rosie:

Once Upon a Time...

...there was a princess and king and queen. They had a daughter called Thumbelina. They had an office and in their office was a very hungry dragon. They had a key who locked the dragon into the office, but one day the King and Queen locked the dragon in with the key but the key went right through the door of the office. The Dragon ate the key all up!

And then... the dragon had a claw who fitted right through the key hole. And then when the King and Queen noticed the office they came up the stairs and they noticed they could see the dragon and - do you know what colour he was? He was a bit of black, really black on his tummy, and his colour of his skin not on his tummy, on his back and his face, was red and yellow and green and red.

And then, all of a sudden, the King and Queen noticed a little golden ball flying in the air! And it was strange but when all the fairy dust came out from the ball, there was standing a little human. And it had wings and hair and it was a fairy! The fairy said to the King and Queen, "I will help you from this terrible dragon." The King and Queen said that this dragon had ate it all up. And then the fairy said that "it would grow you a big big big big big painful as high and high as the clouds. Plant."

And do you know? From that day, a Prince rode past the castle, but the fairy had planted it with tall sharp trees with thorns on them. And there was thorns that twisted and made knots and bows all around the castle. Then the Prince chopped down the trees and chopped down the thorns until he got to the door,and knocked, and it opened. And the King and the Queen's heads poked out.

And the Prince said " I have come to save your daughter the Princess. I would like to marry her and I will get married to her properly in her wedding vows."

Then he said "I love princesses. Your daughter is so beautiful, I want to marry her. Then I will dress up in my really wedding things and my ball clothes, then I will come out from behind the curtain and I will dance with your daughter for the whole day long." And then the King and Queen said, "I will do that, but if you do that and promise, we will, but upstairs in the room, the fairy is trying to get the dragon really comfortable. It's our pet... but it ate up the key to our door.

The Prince said nothing, but inside his heart, his heart was breaking. He really wanted to marry the Princess. Then the Princess heard a funny noise. She heard "THUMP THUMP". She saw the dragon thumping near her. She ran downstairs and went into some of her Dad's comics and made a little box. A BIG box, but it really was brilliant. But then... THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMPTHUMPTHUMP THUMP THUMP THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP came the footsteps again.

It was the DRAGON! It came after her. The princess was really scared. She had her most beautiful Sellotape in her pocket, and she made the box all Sellotaped and the dragon couldn't stick his claw into it. The Sellotape was magic and when she held it it was all squidgy, but when she let go it was all hard. Then the Prince said "THUMP THUMP THUMP" in a really really kind voice. And then the Princess heard the kind footsteps. She ran all the way downstairs so when she say the Prince, she fell in love. Then the Princess said in a REALLY kind voice "Heelloooooo." And the Prince said "Hello" in a man's sort of voice.

Then the Princess wondered all about her King and Queen. Then she said "What about my King and Queen, they can't just leave the castle without missing the comic box that I made for them. Then she wondered all about them. They would like to go to the ball too, cos she heard that the Prince had been talking with the King and Queen. And then she wondered again "I think", she said, "I will wear my best ballgown, and for the wedding I will wear my best wedding dress with a silver tarara."

Then the King and Queen married, but the King's Queen died, cos she had been spelled on by a wicked witch who said "When the sun sets you will be dead for a hundred years." Then the King married again, but this was an ugly lady and soon later she had two ugly nasty babies. One she named Statue. One she named Mrs Roberts. And the next one was called Blossom.


Holly:

Once Upon a Time...

...there was a King and Queen and they did not have a daughter. And one day the Queen did have a baby, and the Queen's baby did grow up to be a lovely beautiful Princess. And soon it was the time for the fairies time to bring their magical presents to the baby. The first gived grace, and the second said she will dance like an angel, and when the last fairy stepped up to give the baby her gift the eighth fairy pushed in front of her that did not been invited to the celebration. She was wicked and old. No-one had seen her for years.

The nasty fairy (the eighth fairy) did say "The Princess will prick her finger on teh spindle of a spinny wheel and die." And the ninth fairy "This is MY gift" she said. "The Princess will not die. Instead she'll fall asleep for a hundred years. And after that time a prince will come to wake her up.!

The King and Queen were despaired. They could hardly bear to have something hurting their daughter. And a hundred years went past, and after that time, a Prince did come to wake her up, and "a Princess!" He cried, and he kissed her. And he kissed her and everybody in the castle waked up too! And celebrated with the fairy's spell was broken. And the King and Queen was delighted.

And the Princess and the Prince were married! And the Prince and Princess lived happily in the Prince's castle. And they lived happily ever after!


Once Upon a Time...

...there was a Mother with a little girl called Little Red Riding Hood. And she did have a little basket, and her Mother did say "Your Granny is not feeling well today. Will you give her a basket of all these things to her?" Little Red Riding Hood did say "Yes." And Little Red Riding Hood didn't know that a crafty fellow was near a tree hiding in the path. It was a wolf. And Little Red Riding Hood did peer around to see where she was going. She stepped on a puddle wearing trousers and she hurt her knee.

The wolf did jump out at her! The wolf went along to Granny's house and said "It's little red riding hood!" In a voice like hers. And Little Red Riding Hood's Granny said "Just lift the latch dear, and come in." So the wolf did lift the latch and swallowed Little Red Riding Hood's Granny, UP. Then Little Red Riding Hood did come to Granny's house and, do you know what she saw...? The wolf said "Just lift the latch dear, and come in." "Oh Granny, what big ears you have!". "All the better to hear you with" said the wolf, in Granny's voice. And then Little red Riding Hood's Daddy did come and he was a huntsman. A woodcutter. And he did always chop down wood for them to make a fire.

He did saw the wolf. Cutted open him, and out looked Granny, and Little Red Riding Hood! And they lived happily ever after.

The End.

Plant

We were helping Daddy throw out a dead plant from the loft.

Rosie: "Daddy. Why are we throwing away this plant?"
Daddy: "Well, because it is dead and doesn't look very nice anymore."
...
Rosie: "I think it didn't look very nice when it was alive!"

Prizewinner

Rosie won the prize for best Easter Bonnet in nursery today! Holly was super-fantastic about having essentially the same hat and being prizeless.

Cars

Holly: "The car is making my wee wee go round and round in circles in my minnie!"