The above letter was written by Our Eldest Child to Susanne Cole, when she found that her stuff had been interfered with, just shortly after her efforts to comply with school policy on bullying had resulted in her de facto expulsion from the school.  Susanne Cole never answered.

The long and short of it is....so caught up have we been with the difficulty of getting any straight information out of the Management and the Trustees that we have forgotten all about the third part of this Triumvirate - The College of Teachers.

Between the three entities of the school, Management, (including members of the College of Teachers), The College, and the Trustees, all the various powers and liabilities of the business that is TRSS are shared out.  Although they can be moved about to suit whatever situation is pressing, and given the Trustees blithe proclaimation that they have ‘given all their powers away”, where the eventual liability will lie for such wanton damage to children remains to be seen. (Hint, the “Board” is synonymous with “the School” in terms of liability.)

We can say that Mark Thornton has clearly said that it was all three entities who chose visit the de facto expulsions onto three small children because of their parents complaints about the very well substantiated bullying.

In fact, hold up right there.  It is not true to say that it was our complaints that caused our dismissal.  It was our observation that, although our eldest child was following the behaviour policy which is, by the way, to tell if you are being bullied, the teacher was not following it.  In actual fact the objection we had to the behaviour policy was that it was not being followed!. 

It was for bringing this to the attention of Management, Trustees and College that we were axed and our children were sacrificed.

The teacher was not able to control the boys in that class as many others can testify.  Susanne Cole did not fulfill her stated duty to our daughter.  When Mark Thornton interfered in the contract she had made with me personally regarding our daughter’s safety at school, she had a duty to the child to stand up for that agreement, because she made it in full freedom, and using her own judgement as a teacher and she did not stand by her own conviction in the face of Mr Thornton’s orders.  Never mind that he was also overturning school policy in his telling us to deal with him and not Susanne.  This kind of behaviour in a teacher does not fit in with any Steiner principle we have been able to find in the last year of research.

In doing this he did not respect her, Our Eldest Child, or us, or follow the stated school procedure and Suzanne Cole did nothing to challenge either of those things.  Perhaps these facts make it easier to understand why she was unable to stop the boys from assaulting, hurting and ridiculing their class-mates!  That is a reason, and not an excuse.  We realise that we have been guilty, through feeling sorry for a teacher being undermined by Management in this way, of almost completely letting her off the hook!  Steiner never let his teachers off the hook and demanded very high standards of dedication to all the children.

Likewise, look at Our Middle Child’s situation.  Sheryl Mace is a highly respected teacher at the school, and we liked her and I think I can say that she also liked us.  She knew that we were having problems in Our Eldest Child’s class and it did strike me as odd that she never once mentioned them, even when things were getting more tense because school policy about telling was not resulting in the promised action.   

Sheryl did admit that these boys had been allowed to be like that since Kindy, but even though Our Middle Child had never had a single problem in the fourteen months (ie more than an entire school year) that she had been at the school, when it came to it, Sheryl did absolutely nothing to protect her charge.  She simply stood there and said that her conscience was clear.  She said that it was ‘not the time’ to discuss things.

Looking at the situation square in the face, and seeing how easily these teachers betrayed the children that they were supposed to take care of and, according to Rudolf Steiner, accept and even engender love from, we can see that they part played by the College in this whole sorry affair is like assassins in the night, silently doing the deadly deed, but then conspicuously absent when the gory mess is discovered.

Why have we made this over-sight?  Two reasons.  One is the moveable structure of the school mentioned above, including the way that the College is held in a kind of protected state of grace.  And the other?  Simple prejudice.  You see, I remember several teachers as being just so important in my life, my learning and my view of the world, quite simply I just loved them.  I suppose you could say that teachers had become ‘sacred cows’ to me.

Such influence have these people had on my life that it goes against all conditioning not to trust teachers, and it is very painful and difficult to confront the fact that these teachers have actually chosen to hurt my children.  And then, having hurt them, in direct contradiction to the philosophies of Rudolf Steiner, they have chosen to hide behind the hydra-like school structures, veiled in supposed Anthroposophical purity, while my children’s trust and self-esteem was trampled in the dirt.

The idea that a group of adults, professional teachers no less, could behave in such a cowardly, dishonest, and abusive fashion, to small children is likely to turn the stomachs of all right thinking people.  Not only that, but it has to be acknowledged that Management, Trustees and apparently large elements in the parent community all promote the rather disgusting illusion that these negligent ‘professionals’ are more vulnerable and therefore need more protection from the harsh realities of life than, for example, a child of five.

What do you think, am I over my sacred cows yet?

Anybody seriously thinking and feeling that they have something to  contribute to the documentary currently in production, (bearing in mind the need for accuracy and politeness), can contact us at info@amazonfilms.net

btw, this isn’t going to go on for that long, because we’ve got other projects and so when we say “permanent invitation” we mean until we’ve made the programme, obviously.