Originally Posted by Osem (Post 34339485)

Well what would you expect a headteacher to say under such tragic circumstances?

Originally Posted by RizzyKing (Post 34339488)

Atempting to apply old classifications is part of where we are going wrong tbh it is not only kids from the so called "under privilaged" group that is the problem i see on a daily basis kids from so called middle-upper class bracket coming to my area trying to fit in with the kids that they see as "rough and cool". It is also that bracket that take things to extreme's as they feel they have to do more to be accepted.

But as someone above said the vast vast majority of teenager's are polite helpful and non aggressive but yet again we are going to concentrate on the idiot minority and no doubt some new legislation will come in to help us do that.

Under labour in the last ten years it has become the norm to praise and understand failure and bad behaviour (perhaps a reflection of the politicians we have representing us) and it is time to get back to heaping the praise onto the decent hard working and socially responsible instead of devoting time and large amounts of money to the "i want an excuse for my crappy behaviour" brigade.

Originally Posted by Osem (Post 34339494)

True and 60 million UK residents didn't get blown up by today's bomb in C. London but the newspapers and programmes are full of it and understandably so. Whilst I agree that success, achievement etc. (however that's measured) amongst the young should be better publicised and celebrated, there's no way that the editors are going to fill their pages with good news.

Originally Posted by TheDaddy (Post 34339491)

If he was the violent criminal gang member, as his death suggests, I would have expected his head teacher to have said nothing, in fact if he was a member of an underclass I wouldn't have thought he'd have bothered with school at all, let alone passed exams and tried to get in to collage

Originally Posted by bringerofnoise (Post 34339506)

Music plays a big part (though i use the term music loosely) by promoting gang culture, When i was a teenager music was about having a good time and sexeh women:tu: and so it was, we had a good time and not one person or animal was hurt :D

Originally Posted by Incognitas (Post 34339535)

I've been a secondary school teacher for over 30 years....and for all of that time and in my own teenage years the media periodically points the finger at a minority of teenagers and gets quite jingoistic about them and fails entirely to notice that 95% of teenagers are normally well behaved and not indulging in gang warfare at all.It certainly peed me off when I was a teenager in the 60's and 70's.:rolleyes:

In fact if you go back far enough I'm sure you'll find all sorts of newspaper reports of gangs back into Edwardian and Victorian era and even further back still than that.

Adults screw the world up and then complain about the young....Typical.:rolleyes:

Originally Posted by Osem (Post 34339519)

Yes I can see that scenario - "............we approached the head teacher for comment on the student's tragic death and he refused to do so!"

Sadly, passing some GCSE's doesn't preclude anyone from being in a gang and/or being involved in any amount of serious trouble - in fact, some colleges seem to be centres of such activity for a proportion of their students.

Originally Posted by TheDaddy (Post 34339548)

Alternatively the head teacher said it was a tragic incident and left it at that, rather than launching into a heartfelt eulogy about the youngsters hopes and aspirations

Passing exams doesn't preclude you, although it's well know in America that their education is the first thing to fall by the wayside, perhaps things aren't to bad over here after all, it could even be a government soundbite 'we have the best educated gang members in the world'