Dailymail
Chris Brooke
10 November 2009
The pupils were shocked when they turned up at Foxhill Primary to find their teacher had been attacked in a violent break-in.
But their parents were more appalled when they learnt the 'crime' had been staged by the school as part of a problem-solving exercise.
In the dark: Jonathan Whitehead and one of his sons, Josh, 8, outside Fox Hill Primary School. He says his son was so upset, he did not want to return to school
Children as young as five were greeted with a distressing scene of
'blood' on the floor, police tape and a female teacher with a plaster
on her head.
Crime investigators arrived and pupils were asked to help catch the culprit by looking at evidence.
Many of the 300 pupils at the Sheffield school remained in the dark until receiving an explanatory letter at the end of the week.
Head Nicola Shipman said parents weren't let in on the secret to
keep the exercise as realistic as possible but some said their children
had been left frightened.
The exercise has echoes of the scenes (above) faced by primary school children in West Sussex this summer when many were left in tears after a spaceship apparently crash-landed and a teacher was abducted by aliens
Mother-of-three Emma Whitehead, 28, said it was 'totally irresponsible' and claimed other parents were disgusted.
'The children didn't know
anything about it. Some of them are just babies. They walked into the
school hall and saw the blood and tapes,' she added.
Children at Foxhill Primary in Sheffield were told their school had been the subject of a violent break-in
'I have spoken to a number of parents and they are disgusted. A lot of children were frightened by the blood and the story they were told.
'I cannot see what the kids have learned from this. I can understand it if this had been done at a comprehensive school, but these children are too young to really understand what was going on.
'The school should have consulted parents first and given us a
chance to object if we wanted to.
'I know a lot of parents would have done that. I actually saw the teacher still walking around with a plaster on her head two days after the fake attack.'
Mrs Whitehead and her husband Jonathan, 32, have three children Benjamin, five, Ellie, six, and Joshua, eight, at the school.
Engineer Mr Whitehead said: 'The school carried on pretending a crime had really taken place for four days and during that time the children believed a teacher had been injured and that their school had been broken into.
'To make it more convincing, South Yorkshire Police forensic officers went to the school and took the fingerprints of some of the children and a police officer spoke to the children about it.
Concerns: Parents have accused staff at Fox Hill Primary School in Sheffield of frightening pupils by carrying out the week-long mock break-in
'Surely the kids could have been told to imagine all this had happened rather than being told it was real? My son is autistic and we are still struggling to convince him that this was just make believe. He was so upset he didn't want to go back to school.'
Mrs Shipman said the problem solving was held to cover key skills in science, numeracy and analysis. 'All the feedback is that the children who took part enjoyed the week,' she said.
'Essentially we asked them to become a mini-Sherlock Holmes.
'The problem-solving week was held to cover key skills in the school curriculum from creative writing through to science, numeracy and analysis.
'We wanted to give the pupils a topic that would inspire their creativity and their imaginations which is why the crime scene was chosen.
'We did consider informing parents ahead of the week but we felt this might impact upon the children getting fully involved.'
