Go England?

[Mary Jennings]

As some of you may know, England plays Nigeria in the world football 
championships tomorrow morning GMT.  On that note, my daughter came home 
from primary school with a letter to all parents.  Here are snippets of it:

"I am writing to let you know how this school will be operating tomorrow 
morning in response to many requests from parents and pupils.  School will 
open as normal for pupils and we expect all children to be in by 8:50 am 
[normal opening time]...[w]e appreciate that many families are very 
interested in the [football] but some are not at all!".

What follows is a schedule stating that TVs will be set up in school so that 
students can watch the second half of the game if they wish to do so.  
"School staff will supervise the watching of TV until the match ends when 
children will return to class and begin normal lessons.  Unfortunately we do 
not have room for parents to stay".

EH!?  Parents stay?  What the...

The letter ends with the headteacher reinforcing that it is a normal school 
day, so uniforms are to be worn and face-painting and hair spraying will not 
be tolerated.

I must point out that the headteacher is a brilliant man who turned a 
failing school into one of the best in town in less than two years.  He is 
very tolerant and open-minded, so this poor man must have been bombarded by 
parents and students asking if the school will be closed if he had to resort 
to sending this letter out.  If I didn't know him as well as I do I'd think 
it was a joke.

OK, I'm not a heavy-duty sports fan, but IMHO requesting the cancellation of 
classes for a football game, or any kind of sport for that matter, is way 
out of order.  I know it's only one morning out of the whole school year, 
but what does this say about the parents' priorities?  How many kids will be 
called in "sick" so they can stay home to watch the game?  How about any 
other sporting event that takes place during school hours?  Do these parents 
expect the school to close whenever they can't be bothered to pull 
themselves away from a TV set?

Me, peeved off?  You bet.  My jaw dropped in disbelief when I first read 
this letter.  Have any other English parents received similar communication 
from their childrens' schools?  Anyone one else ever had this happen?  
Anyone think I'm being completely anal retentive and should get a life?

Mary Ann
(who just passed the letter to her husband, and his jaw has just dropped as 
well)

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