Darland School starts gender segregation
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Reading the letter to parents shown on the Wrexham.com Twitter feed it appears that Darland school are now starting to implement gender segregation for lunch times. Surely it is normal young person development to be able to spend time with those from the opposite gender in a casual setting such as lunchtime.
If there are number issues about canteen capacity then surely a sperate split based on age would be better than gender. Would be interested to hear from a Draland parent, pupil or the school.
I’m glad someone brought this up, alongside the ridiculous measures to force kids to eat outside when spring still hasn’t emerged & if you read into the language over the canteen arrangements it sounds like they want to force kids to eat as fast as possible.
But yes the whole boys/girls segregation thing makes no sense whatsoever in 2018. Fact is both genders will have more incentive to mess about if split up. Can’t speak for the girls but I remember the ridiculous lunchtime antics back in the day if it was lads only.
If the school is too full, actually spend the money on adequate dining provision for the number of pupils there. If a similar situation were to arise in HMP Berwyn down the roads & lags were complaining about being forced to eat either outside in the rain or in an overcrowded canteen, you’d guarantee we’d never hear the end of it. But no, it’s completely acceptable to treat children either like wayward mountain sheep or battery hens – no choice in between.
It’s all over the top nanny state anyway, we used to be allowed out at lunch, which cleared out loads of people off school premises during lunch thus causing less of a dinner scrum.
Apparently these days 14+ are allowed to stay out until all hours without supervision once they’re home, but they are in grave danger of being ran over, mugged etc… if they leave school gates during the daytime.
What a world we live in.
My two grand children attend Darland School.
They leave home at 8:00 am every morning to catch the school bus. School starts at 8:55 am. They have a short break at 11:00 to 11:20 am during which time it is almost impossible to buy food in the canteen due to the large number of children trying to be served. If they are not trying to be served in the canteen they are standing on the school yard whatever the weather conditions.
Lunch time starts at 1:20 pm which is ridiculously late. Again, children either spend most of the lunch time waiting to be served in the canteen or walking around the school grounds eating their lunch whatever the weather is like.
The canteen is not big enough to be able to cope with the large number of children in the school.
Expecting children to eat on the school yard in all weather conditions after spending five hours in a classroom is unacceptable.Why don’t they have a staggered lunchtime based on year groups? Lower years having an earlier lunch one term and upper years the following term. Smaller numbers in the canteen so shorter queues. I suspect it is finance driven to have a staggered approach would mean paying staff for longer. How many pupils can be accommodated in the canteen at one sitting ?
This approach is clearly against the Wrexham CBC Equality and Gender Policy.
It does, however, reflect the egotistic and autocratic headteacher currently working at Darland High School.
What are the governing body and Wrexham CBC doing to resolve this situation?
Part way through high school, we had outdoor shelters built where we could eat packed lunch if the weather was bad. Cheap and cheerful. We could eat indoors in a couple of large classrooms but usually preferred to be outside anyway.
[quote quote=147694]Why don’t they have a staggered lunchtime based on year groups?[/quote]
I’ve seen this done in smaller schools where the hall doubles up as the canteen. It’s easy to do in a small school.
Bigger schools usually have a dedicated canteen, which is mostly empty during the day so staggering lunchtimes would make better use of the space.I suspect you are correct about staffing being the issue – not just the cooks/servers but also supervisors as they may be the teachers who also need to have a lunch break at some point, then return to teach the kids who have finished lunch.
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