Revealed: The full letter sent to parents about school diversity day before girl was banned for Union Jack dress

22 comments

1. The straight A student, who had planned to talk about history and traditions in a talk she had prepared, said she had come into school ‘proud’ to show off her ‘iconic’ Ginger Spice dress but was left feeling ’embarrassed’ and ‘upset’.

2. “Wear something that reflects your nationality”

   *Wears nations flag.*

   “No not that.”

3. between this and the afghan thing that’s at least another 200k votes to reform. It’s honestly like Labour and the Tories want reform to win at this point lol.

4. What a really stupid way to publicise a school.

5. Oh they hid the bit about the other pupil with the flat cap and checked shirt. Seems like they really were excluding the native culture!

6. What is worse is that the school has not apologised for what they did, only for any distress caused. They don’t believe they have done anything wrong, even now.

7. I could be way off base here but I suspect that, in reality, she was supposed to be in ‘cultural dress’ that was ‘appropriate for a school setting and holds cultural significance’ (which is the wording of the letter) and, instead, she wore a sleeveless mini dress with a union jack on it. It also says that they must inform the school in advance if they want to wear cultural dress on that day – they cannot just turn up in it.

   I don’t know if I agree that the dress is inappropriate (we haven’t seen the policy or what other children were wearing) – but I don’t think there’s anything to suggest that if the dress had any other flag on it, any other image on it, or was any colour, that the school would’ve thought it was ok. Or was it simply that she hadn’t informed them in advance when she was supposed to.

   I’d hazard a guess that (because the dad shared the pdf letter from the school and the colour of the hyperlink to the form indicates that it hasn’t been clicked on, the dad probably didn’t fill out the form to say she wasn’t going to be in the uniform).

   It’s not a union jack issue, it’s a mini dress/prior notice issue. Just thinking about it logistically, they can’t just have a thousand people turning up without prior warning and wanting to perform a poem.

   On top of that, the school have apologised for her upset (not for their actions, not admitted any wrongdoing), offered her the opportunity to share her poem – but they don’t want that. And all said by the monday when it happened on the Friday. No no no, daddy wants the money from the tabloids…

   I think that when we have a “grade A pupil” who isn’t at an age where she would’ve had a single thing actually graded with a letter, we’re not dealing with people who talk about reality.

8. Yeah, I think this letter shifts the narrative fully onto the school making a cock up.

   I always try and look through the media frenzy and find the actual story, and I had seen initial defences of the school stating that she had turned up in a Union Flag outfit when it was supposed to be OTHER cultures. Would have still been a massive over reaction from the school, but also understandable.

   If you specifically ask the class to come in wearing a representation of THEIR OWN culture and still react this way, the school doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

   This is exactly what Nigel and Tommy have been banging on about, and it is only going to fuel their narrative, because there is an actual documented instance they can now point to.

9. Links that force you to pay or accept cookies should be archived.

10. “appropriate for school” – it’s a tight dress covered in sequins, clearly not appropriate at all

11. Good old daily heil promo for their grifters 🤣

12. Firstly, it’s not ethnic minorities that made the decision that this girl couldn’t ‘celebrate British culture’. 

    The reason you’re not being told who made this decision is because it was a white person. I’d put money on it. 

    I’ve seen the speech she wrote, talking about ‘British culture’ being ‘ignored’. It definitely DID have undertones of racism, in that it claimed British culture was being forgotten /pushed aside/ silenced

    I doubt a12 year old decided to do this on her own. Dad is the one making a massive fuss to the media 

    A union flag mini dress isn’t any sort of traditional British / English clothing 

13. The article omits the involvement of “Tommy Two-Names” and his EDL pals.

    I fear young Courtney has been groomed by a gang of English Nationalist to create a ‘story’ that suits their poisonous narrative.

14. Being pimped out by your dad to wear a dress that I often see on hen do’s and prostitutes is not a way to go through life.

    Appropriate for school? Of course not, but, they knew this. It’s all for the outrage.

15. Their letter was incredibly poorly thought out. It is clear that wearing a sari would have been the appropriate and quite easy thing to do for children from some backgrounds. If your entire background was white British, then I expect some people could have worn traditional Welsh dress or people with Scottish heritage could wear tartan (regardless of how recent it is). This would still be a lot of effort to source for many. There really aren’t a lot of heritage options for someone who hasn’t got either minority cultural or Irish/Scottish/Welsh background. We don’t have a clear and fairly recent traditional dress like many European countries have.

    Regardless of the truth and the intentions of all parties involved, one thing is obvious and that’s that the school did not think this through at all. If the event was mainly intended for students from minority cultural backgrounds, then say that and say that others can come in non-uniform (albeit I can see that being a problem for many reasons too). Given that ‘British heritage dress’ is difficult to come by and to define, then the letter should have given an extensive list of examples. It might have been a good idea to suggest famous British characters from fiction or history. To just say ‘no football kits’ is clearly inadequate.

16. “Wellbeing and Culture Coordinator” for fuck sake. How the hell do you become one of those.

17. England is pathetic.

18. Daddy wanted to stir some fascist shit so he used his kid. How nice 

    It’s along the lines of turning up at Pride with ‘when is straight pride day’ or going to a BLM march with an ‘all lives matter’ sign, and then claiming you’re ‘only speaking up for my culture, just like they are’… 

19. Can we not give this farce any more oxygen? We have more important issues.

20. Ignoring the whole Union Jack aspect, the Spice Girls are the best selling girl group worldwide.

    You can’t ignore the impact they’ve had on both the UK and worldwide and have become a big part of UK culture’s history.

    Let’s be fair, the dress usually being described as “Geri Haliwell’s Union Jack dress” shows just how much impact it’s had on the public consciousness.

21. Why isn’t the teacher who decided this facing the “bringing the school into disrepute” gross misconduct ?

    For most of us if the PM were talking about what we did at work it’s either promotion or firing time z…

22. Working as a governor, and understanding school finances, how the hell does a school have a wellbeing and culture adviser on employment??? How can they afford that and what is her day to day?

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