Reactoblog

Tomorrow the children return to school. Four of them. The youngest commences pre-school in a few weeks. That will be fun. The early morning routine starts again tomorrow.

The trouble will start tonight trying to get the moonlighters a-bed. And then to tin-open them out of bed tomorrow. Maybe the lure of new teachers will get them moving. Maybe not. I used to enjoy returning to school myself, seeing all the lads again and having the craic.

Myself, I got up at a slightly earlier time today to wean myself off my bed. It has been a short summer but a long one in other ways. And difficult too at times.

So, back to school tomorrow. The school notified us all on the last day of school that the uniform requirements were being tightened, black shoes, conservative-grey-trousery. Load of nonsense. My son’s on the school council. Were they asked for their opinion as the children affected? Not a bit of it. All very PC to have these school councils. . .

It may appeal to the school’s sense of where it thinks it should be. But in truth it is an unnecessary step, carried out with no reference to the appropriate guidelines from DENI, which were no doubt drawn up at great cost and consultation.

Nowadays you can’t do anything without consultation. So why didn’t they ask our opinion? If somethin ain’t broken, why try and fix it with a measure that will cause antagonism. There are some clothes that children will wear and others they won’t and I’m not falling out with mine over some rule brought in on a whim.

If there is a ‘breach’ I will be asking the school to speak to me, not the child. They don’t buy the clothes, so they are not responsible if they aren’t suitable in this wonderful middle class regimented 4×4 nouveau riche world we live in down by the seaside.

And here, whilst we’re at it, what about a uniform for teachers? Now there’s a thought.