An inspiring message from a British principal to year six pupils was meant to be read by just a few dozen parents but eventually touched the hearts of thousands around the world. Then, inevitably, came the backlash.
When Alison Owen posted a photo on Facebook of a letter her son Charlie had brought home from his Lancashire primary school in July last year, she had no idea that within days it would have touched a chord with millions of strangers around the world.
The letter, sent to all year 6 pupils at Barrowford village school in Nelson, near the northern English town of Burnley, told each child they should be “very proud” of their effort in the key stage 2 (KS2) tests, but added: “We are concerned that these tests do not always assess all of what it is that makes each of you special and unique.”
The letter said: “The people who create these tests and score them do not know each of you — the way your teachers do, the way I hope to, and certainly not the way your families do. They do not know that many of you speak two languages. They do not know that you can play a musical instrument or that you can dance or paint a picture. They do not know that your friends count on you to be there for them or that your laughter can brighten the dreariest day.”
Owen, who runs a pet shop in Barrowford, said she simply posted the letter to show how “lovely” her children’s school is.
“I’m a member of a mums’ group on Facebook called The Nest — it’s not very big, only 180 people or so. Anyway, I posted the photo and one or two of the girls complained they couldn’t see it because my security settings are quite strict and I wasn’t actually friends with them. So I made the picture public and it went mad,” Owen said.
She posted the letter on Monday July 14 in the last week of the summer term. By the time she woke up the next day, it had been posted on Twitter and was trending worldwide.
“I turned up at school and heard that Radio 4 and 5 Live had been on the phone, there had been camera crews outside the school all day. I was excited but I was also thinking: ‘Oh what have I done?’ I was hoping the school weren’t mad at me,” she said.
She need not have worried. School principal Rachel Tomlinson was delighted that her school was in the spotlight, and soon found herself sitting on the BBC Breakfast sofa while a colleague was interviewed by Good Morning Britain on ITV. Charlie, meanwhile, was on the local news and taking it all in his stride.
“Usually when a school is in the media it’s because something has gone wrong, but we were receiving overwhelmingly positive feedback,” Tomlinson said, reflecting on the “crazy” week. “It was incredible. We couldn’t believe it. We didn’t expect it at all. We just thought that 50 kids would read it, along with their mums and dads and maybe grandparents. But suddenly we were getting messages of support from celebrities — I remember [former British children’s laureate] Michael Rosen shared the photo — and interview requests from around the world.”
Fielding the media calls was a full-time job for one member of the school’s staff all week. She tried to turn the task into an educational game, getting the children to put flags on a world map showing where in the world inquiries and Twitter messages had come from.
Strangers sent ￡10 (US$15.57) notes through the post asking Tomlinson to “buy something for the children.” Others sent books for the school library. One couple from Italy asked how they could enrol their sons at the school.
“I had to explain we were a local state school for local children,” Tomlinson said. She spent the first week of her summer holiday replying to thousands of e-mails from wellwishers and accepted a trip to to talk about education at the British Council in Beirut.
As ever, with fame came the inevitable backlash, with some netizens accusing Tomlinson of plagiarism. They noticed Barrowford’s letter bore a striking similarity to one posted on the blog of US academic Kimberley Hurd. However, Tomlinson had never claimed to have written the letter herself. She was sent a link to Hurd’s blog by her mentor, who thought it would be “right up my street.”
She felt it chimed perfectly with Barrowford’s motto of “learn to love, love to learn” and its aim of ensuring pupils are “rounded and grounded,” with the “ultimate goal” to “provide individuals with the ability to learn what we need to in whatever circumstances we find ourselves.”
The school aims to ensure children enjoy learning, rather than putting them under pressure to achieve league table-topping results.
“We don’t hot-house our children for their Sats. We’re not obsessed with results … we are achieving above the national average but doing it differently from most schools,” Tomlinson said.
Before the year 6 students sat their tests in May, the children were treated to bacon sandwiches and hot chocolate.
“We want our children to go on to be respectful, self-regulating, compassionate, self-aware individuals,” she said.
Tomlinson later discovered that the text originated from another US citizen, Mary Ginley. They made contact via Facebook and Ginley wrote a public note of support.
“She was really excited that her words had been resurrected but also a little disappointed that they were still necessary, because she had written them 15 years ago,” Tomlinson said.
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