“It’s all David Cameron’s Fault”

I ran the Amnesty International Club, and I was super proud of it – it was full of pupils who were using their persuasive writing, strong argument and communication skills to write to Presidents across the world fighting on behalf of prisoners of conscious and people unjustly sent to jail without trial.

As an English teacher, it ticked the ‘writing for purpose’ motivation box well and was making a real difference and impact across the world – all from my little classroom.

One term the club was asked to lead an assembly on Amnesty’s work and Human Rights. That’s quite a broad topic, so the pupils decided to focus on the nearby Refugee Week. They spent time researching statistics, real stories and bits they thought would interest their peers. We had several lunchtimes preparing the performance side ready for the assembly that would be shared three times with different year groups over the week.

First one – fine
Second one – fine
Third one – got me in a ‘concerned meeting’ with the Headteacher…

In the final assembly, one of my pupils went rouge; during the statistics section about how many refugees (at the time) were fleeing, and what the UK was doing to help, my passionate, articulate pupil decided to ad lib a bit:

“Well, if we all think about it, this awful refugee crisis situation is all David Cameron’s fault…”

From across the hall, over a sea of year eights a colleague of mine looked straight over to me and laughed;

she knew what had happened,

she knew what was coming.

I quickly contacted the Head of the Amnesty Teacher Training programme that I had attended the year before, telling her what had happened and asked for her advice.

She laughed, she said this happens quite often, that I should explain it wasn’t in the planning and that I understood the importance blah, blah, blah. In essence, it had been said – and I can’t control everything that my pupils say…free speech after all…

It took until lunchtime for me to be summed to the office for a ‘quick word about your assembly.’

What could I say?

In the theatre never work with kids or animals?

It turns out a Conservative voting colleague had been upset by the comment, and outlined that he didn’t feel assemblies should be political.

I agreed that assemblies should not be party aligned in schools -although how you lead an assembly on refugees and Amnesty’s work without it being political I’m not sure.

I murmured the right noises and promised to ‘have a word’ with the pupil.

But here’s the thing –

Reader, I didn’t have a word.

Is that because I agreed? – No, I don’t believe one man is powerful enough to be responsible for the entire refugee crisis our planet is experiencing.

But

Was I inspired by how my pupil had used their voice and their platform to make a strong statement for what they believed in?

Was I inspired by how this 15 year old, the so called ‘lazy-unmotivated’ generation, was so engaged in both world issues and politics?

Was I excited that school had provided that opportunity for this pupil to take a risk?

Absolutely yes.

Absolutely yes.

As I see it now, we need more people (and politicians) as brave as my pupil -something needs to change in how we are supporting refugees.

And I’d be interested to hear what David Cameron is up to when it comes to this…