Trashgate: A Response

Hello again. The last couple of days have been laced with articles, intrigue, Kinnan, The Head and many, many hits. Again, we're thankful to all readers and sharers of our little blog. This is Madness. Complete Madness. It's really One Step Beyond. It is clear that the Head is well versed in how to manipulate the media and has a history, which comes with the territory of his job, of dealing with high-pressure media interviews. He does this very well. Kinnan, on the other hand, does not, and so he may have come across in the interviews unflatteringly.

We'd like to be given the opportunity to respond to all the calls we heard on yesterday's show with Iain Dale on LBC 97.3, as well as set the record straight on why this blog is really here. These were the main points we heard against Kinnan (with a response to them):

• Profanity - The criticism was that Kinnan shouldn't have used 'fruity' language, and put his points across using clean language. Now obviously, he could have not sworn, but surely the amount of expletives Kinnan used showed the size of his anger and indignance. Yet since when was swearing against the law? At Hampstead, the Sachsgate tapes were used for an English GCSE module. When this hit papers like the Daily Mail and the Telegraph, the Head's response was "I think it is a totally appropriate thing to be doing. We are in the real world and children live in the real world." This is the exact opposite to his words in the CNJ and today. This point was wonderfully elaborated on the Call-in by Milly, a student and also the Young MP for Camden. You can see this expanded upon in a previous post by Heywood Jablome.
• Calling the Head "mad" - Okay, we admit on Kinnan's behalf that this was a poor choice of words. Yet in the CNJ article, the Head says "... the officer I spoke to said he would pass these mad writings of his on to a colleague." Is his writing mad? It's far-fetched when writing satirically, and very critical when writing critically. I can see no madness in this, nor can many others who called in.

The reaction to the initial CNJ article has been overwhelming. The support, too. Other than our own hit count going through the roof, we've been featured in the Evening Standard, the Mail Online and Huffington Post. In addition, you can hear interviews with the Head & Kinnan (start from 46.16), and a poll was taken on the LBC website (this also features clips from the Head and Kinnan's interviews on LBC).

We've seen people supporting either side. We don't mind if you're for or against us. That is the whole point of the blog. That is what we have been saying all along. The blog was never set up as a shouting match filled with revenge and expletives (which, by the way, the Head used when dismissing Kinnan, despite his public protestations of expletives). The Trash was set up as an open forum for students, parents and teachers to voice their opinions on what is wrong in the school. We do not hesitate to say that the school does a lot right, and has amazing staff and students, but we are here to point out the things that could be better. Surely that fits in with the Head's 'We can always be better' attitude. We also wanted to be noticed by the school's management, so that the student consensus could be heard and acted upon, since the current School Council are being side-lined and ignored. I think we have superseded that goal a little.

There are some people out there calling for the Head's sacking or resignation. This is too far. We don't want people out of jobs. We just want a school that has a bit more say for students; where students are noticed. We understand that we have strayed from that ethos in recent times, and can say we are firmly back to where we began in February.

It is clear here that the Head has been caught out on this occasion acting badly, and has defended his actions with a certain amount of revisionist history (despite the Head's claims, the blog was blocked from school servers well before Kinnan's offending article. For that story, click here.) and faux outrage on other people's behalf. There is no evidence to support the claims that the School Council requested the ban, and any reasonable Head Teacher supporting free speech would not have enacted it.

Every day that passes wherein the ban on the blog still exists serves to demonstrate how little the Head can stand criticism of any sort. To clarify, at no point have we ever criticised a teacher or a student. Equally, we understand that the Head wishes to protect the image of the school that he has painstakingly built up, but by having knee-jerk reactions such as blocking us and condemning us only comes off worse in the long run, as we have seen over the past few days.

We know Kinnan and the Head will never see eye-to-eye, but we need to stop focusing on the media circus and start focusing on the issues this blog was set up to address. We are here to address issues and voice opinions. We are entitled to our opinions.

We want to thank the continued support we have had, and hope that the Head and the SLT can appreciate what we are trying to achieve, and use it for the greater good of our school.