School row after 11am Poppy Day silence is moved
 | | Paul Hollingum |
A REMEMBRANCE Day row has broken out after many Islington schools failed to observe the two minutes silence at the same time as the rest of the country.
While most of the population fell silent at 11am last Wednesday, pupils across the borough played outside or continued chatting away in their classrooms.
Most of the schools observed a silence at some point and many focused lessons and assemblies around remembering the fallen heroes, but some parents have expressed outrage about the timing of these.
Elaine Stephenson, 44, a BBC production accountant whose 13-year-old son goes to St Mary Magdalene Academy, in Liverpool Road, Holloway, said: "My partner was at home watching the Armistice Day Service on TV and he could hear the kids at my son's school shouting and playing outside.
"I've never heard him complain about anything but he phoned up the school because he was so disgusted, and when I went in the next day to complain they said they had a few calls from people who felt the same. If everybody is observing it at a special time on a special day you cannot just choose another time."
Paul Hollingum, principal at St Mary Magdalene Academy, said that the primary school pupils observed Wednesday's silence, but in the secondary school there was a week-long focus on remembrance in assembly instead.
"Every child had an assembly which looks at what the poppy signifies, who the Royal British Legion are, what they are raising money for and where it goes," he said. "And at the end of each assembly there was a two-minute silence to remember those who have died in wars. We believe it's much better to remember within a context where we can explain it fully as part of the children's education, and where it's a real part of what we do as a church school."
Town hall education chiefs left individual schools to decide how best to mark the Armistice and most seem to have chosen not to observe the silence in their own time.
Bob Hamlyn, headteacher at Holloway School, in Hilldrop Road, Holloway, said: "We had a whole week of remembrance activities, and the week's theme was Lest We Forget. We sold poppies in the school too. We observed the two minutes silence in form time, and not at 11am, because that's the students' break time."
Danny Coyle, deputy headteacher at St Aloysius College, in Hornsey Lane, Archway, said: "We were in the playground at 11am so we did the silence at about 11.11am, and the whole school stood up in absolute silence. When the two minutes were over the boys all started clapping, which was lovely. We also had a ceremony on the Sunday, which we do every year."
"Lots of staff and pupils were there, as well as the old boys who used to come here. After the service we all go down to the memorial and stand in silence for two minutes. "It's important to remember that dozens and dozens of Aloysians died during the war, and it's important to teach the boys about remembering what happened.
|
|
|
|
|
|