I was running
yesterday. At my current school, we had a health and safety review recently. It's
funny how the mind works: halfway through my run, I remembered a particular
incident at my previous school linked to health and safety.
One day, an unannounced
fire drill took place.
Nothing unusual there.
Knowing where pupils
are at any given time is something that teachers take very seriously. The alarm
went off: I followed procedure to the letter. I quickly got the children ready
and realised that I was a child short. She had gone to the toilet, or so I
thought... Time is of the essence in an exercise like this, so I led my class
out to the playground.
And then I got quite
cross. Said child eventually turned up on the playground too and the poor thing
got quite the telling off.
“Where have you been?”
“Do you not realise
what this could have meant if there had been a real fire?”
Etc.
The poor child was
crestfallen. It was at this stage, and only at this stage that I was informed
that she had in fact been intercepted and taken to a member of the leadership’s office as part
of the fire drill procedure. To test us. To see how staff would react.
Or was it just to try
to catch me out?
I went from cross to
full on enraged and made it extremely clear that I found such practices
completely unacceptable. As far I am concerned, it was a form of gas-lighting. Nothing
unusual there – in our toxic school...
The head’s response
was that it was common practice. That it happened in all other schools that
took safety seriously. I still think this is complete bullshit and what is more
have never heard of any similar trickery at other schools.
To me, it was a mind game pure and simple. An attempt to catch me out and to then use this in a disciplinary. As she had done with other members of staff and would appear to have continued to do so up to the present day – take note oh venerable governing body and council…
Ooh, the anger just
will not go away! Rest assured friends that I am actually in a good place. This
is cathartic and I believe needs to be out there. Love to you all. Except for…
well, you know…
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