Tarique Naseem

Recently the teacher in my son’s class has decided on a complete ban of pencil cases. Parents are now asked to remove them from the children’s school bags.

When I quizzed the teacher, she explained that the pencil cases could contain dangerous items like… sharp pencils(!) that the children could use to poke each other with (not that that’s actually happened yet). She went on to state that there’s no real reason for the children to have them in any case, as the school provided them with all the necessary writing equipment.

Now, I don’t know about you, but this just sounds completely ridiculous. Children have  been taking pencil cases into school since the dawn of man! Why is it such a problem all of a sudden? Are 6 year old’s now potential security threats?

I wonder if they’ll eventually allow the use of clear plastic pencil cases, containing items of 100mm in length or less, thus allowing the teacher to screen them for potential weaponry?

As for the contents being dangerous, let’s see… My son’s pencil case contains a pencil, a ruler, pencil sharpener and a rubber. Yes, I can see where she’s coming from. These are obviously weapons of maths instruction.

(She never said anything about the selection of flick knives and AK47 in his school bag, so I assume they’re okay)

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