Mixed Messages…

A school has told parents they must send sick kids to class in order for them to develop a “be tough” attitude.

Fairways Primary School, in Leigh, has sent out a letter to parents saying it will administer medicine at school, and that children should persevere if they are only suffering minor illnesses.

Quite right, though when you read between the lines, there’s another explanation for this sudden verve for toughening up our increasingly mollycoddled offspring…

In another letter to parents, Mr Pinchback wrote: “Unlike a lot of schools, staff at Fairways administer Calpol, antibiotics and other medication if brought to the office. We find a child will often be able to get through the day if dosed up.

“Children need to develop a ‘be tough’ attitude and be prepared to persevere if they only have minor ailments.”

The letter to parents says the strict policy is to boost attendance, even though it has consistently been above the national average of 96.4 per cent.

Just a ‘can do better’ drive then…? Is there anything wrong with that?

Ah:

If the trend continued, it could have an impact on the Ofsted rating for the school, which missed an outstanding grade by 0.1 per cent at its last inspection.

So, this, despite the spin put on it by the head, is nothing more than yet another bowing to targets set by Whitehall.

Also, perhaps it’d be a lot easier to persuade the kiddiewinks to ‘be tough’ if the grownups weren’t peeing their pants over swine flu, or using it as a handy excuse to expand the public sector:

Chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson warned it was 'premature' to assume the virus was mild just because no one had yet died from it in the UK.

As if to underline the level of concern in Whitehall over swine flu, ministers today appointed a new 'national director of flu resistance'. Ian Dalton, formerly in charge of the Health Service in the north east, will ensure all parts of the NHS have enough equipment, drugs and vaccines.

Because nothing says ‘We’re serious people, engaged on serious issues’ like the appointment of yet another useless central diktat issuing civil service position…

Today postmen began delivering official swine flu advice leaflets to every house in the country. The literature urges people to observe strict hygiene standards, and says they should appoint 'flu friends' to pick up food and drugs for them should they fall ill.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today Programme, Sir Liam said although it might seem the spread of swine flu was slowing down, there was a chance the virus could mutate and come back with devastating force over the winter.

Because now we’ve created this post, god forbid someone might point out that we might no longer need it…

He urged people not to panic-buy Tamiflu on the web, saying Britain had the largest stockpile in the world of the powerful antivirals. He said they would be distributed 'at the right moment, when the numbers increase'.

Yeah, good luck with that!

Who are you going to trust to ensure supplies in the event that swine flu does turn out to be the equivalent of Stephen King’s ‘Captain Trips’– the private sector, or the NHS?

Yeah, that decision didn’t take long, did it…