[Flyboy]

Originally Posted by foreverwar

Yes, what a softie - being upset and worried about threats of violence and death to her personally, and threats to set the school on fire, and animal excrement being posted to the school.

Didn't know that had happened and it is a dispicable thing to do, but again, I didn't read the right web pages. Or is this just a bit hyperbole?

Thank your for that - so, do you think the democratically elected representatives in this school, no matter what their age, should be disenfranchised - or only on matters where their views disagree with yours? (I wonder what your viewpoint/comments would have been if the vote had been 13 to 1 the other way - "a victory for democracy" perhaps?
imho, your dietary habits are extremely relevant, as they shape your world-view, and your comments upon others. And I do not regard a animal bred for food as a "loved one" (mmmm, 8/10 for emotive terminology). My children know where their food comes from, and have been educated in the food supply chain life-cycle.

Do you really expect a bunch of seven, eight, nine, ten and eleven year olds really understood what they were voting for? Surely no one is so naive to imagine, a strong minded head teacher could influence a vote by these little children (yes, they are just little children)? Which way do you think a vote to slaughter the class hamster would have gone? Were they asked to vote on whether the animal should be sold, or sold then slaughtered? It would be very interesting to know how the ballot papers were worded, if indeed there was an actual ballot, or was it just a show of hands?

[Obvioulsy I don't expect you to able to answer, but these are all questions that need to be asked]

If you look in the Independent article (and other local websites), you will see comments from local parents (Tedgar74) stating this.

Still, only one parent seemed to have felt strongly enough to post a message and they seemed to feel it necessary to post the same message twice and apparently the only source to the number of parents who complained. In the local press, it appears only two parents felt passionate enough to comment (one being the same from the Independent, I dare say), if they really are parents of children at the school. These sorts of things are hardly certain, are they?

I found this comment particularly interesting though; from a horse's mouth, so to speak:

anne36 wrote:

Saturday, 12 September 2009 at 10:16 am (UTC)

While I believe children should learn the hard facts about where their food comes from, I firmly believe that the head teacher has gone about this in completely the wrong way. She should not have reared Marcus as a pet and allowed the children to become close to him.
I am a retired teacher and quite honestly find it hard to believe that the school pupil council would have voted for Marcus to be slaughtered without some kind of carrot such as the promise of new animals. Did the head teacher stress the finality of death and did she mention the fear Marcus could experience prior the his demise? Children are self-centred as we all know. They could just as easily be swayed in the other direction. Teachers have great powers over forming ideas and beliefs in children's minds. They probably haven't realised what they've done and given another chance and time to think would vote otherwise.

Thank you for your caveated comment - I do not subscribe to these sites either, but it only took me ten minutes to find this out; I suppose it depends if one is interested in finding out......

You are very welcome. Was this just hearsay, or do you believe it to be accurately reported? When I did a Google search-"teacher threats sheep excrement", the only source to reports of excrement being posted, was from that paragon of truth, balance and reliability: The Daily Heil.