Letters

16th of June 2009

Letter Delivered by Hand

Dear Teachers

Our family and your management group now find ourselves in a difficult and potentially damaging impasse. 

From our previous and lengthy correspondence, you are no doubt aware that although we feel strongly about our daughter’s safety at your school, we do want to resolve these concerns and for [R] and her siblings to continue in what we believe is an otherwise excellent educational establishment.

After initially raising concerns about class 3/4 bullying with Mark Thornton, we became very frustrated with a lack of action on the management team’s part and a lack of communication between school and parents and children on how you were actually, at a practical level, dealing with these issues.  This has led to a breakdown of relationship between you and us, as adults; a breakdown which led you to exclude our entire family from the school premises.  The main victims of this are the children and this is not acceptable from either of our standpoints.

We would like to make a final effort to step back from heated and defensive dialogue and find some form of resolution between us.  We would also like to ensure that together we can keep the record straight to prevent erroneous facts about us (such as those we have recently heard) being further circulated.  We appreciate the school's teachers must find a balance between confidentially and openness with other parents but the mistruths we hear are not fair on our children, and hurt us too.  We hope they can stop now, especially as we are working so hard to sort this out.

Therefore, we ask you once more to talk with us, this time in a forum facilitated by an independent mediator where all parties are equally heard.  We ask that dialogue is entered into on both sides with a genuine desire to look forwards and find a fair and appropriate solution.

Since our own approach to resolving this seems to be unsuccessful, we ask you to put forward your own next steps.  We remain in the dark what your process, structure and format are for taking our parental concerns seriously.  This is part of the problem and is within your power to fix.

Maybe through talking with us, we can better understand what is being done about the problems we raised.  Then you are able to advise us as parents how to positively and actively participate in ensuring the happiness and safety of our children under your care while you continue to manage the school.

If you cannot engage with us on that level at the very least, then perhaps all parents at the school should be aware that “social inclusion” is not a philosophy you extend to adults and can therefore have no value or meaning for the children either.

We do not want to be pushed by you into taking this into a legal or media process but feel we cannot let this drop as it stands.  We urge you to assist us all to finding mutual satisfaction not exclusion - ultimately, all we seek is confidence in your care of our children.

Please respond to us within a few days of receiving this letter.  Thank you. 

Yours sincerely

Angel Garden and Steve Paris