Hampstead School Remains Open

Hampstead School remains open - after all, a day off from the misery and utter boredom would be far too kind. And what better way to boast of this fact than in a news-but-not-actually-news post via the school's website, with a picture from roughly 5 years ago to boot?

Of course boasting has never been anything Management could resist. Maybe some unscrupulous tricksters would endeavor to deceive their parents with gleeful suggestions that "Oh Mother, Father, it seems the School is closed in the wake of all this dreadful weather", but its doubtful that parents would simply assume that Hampstead is closed without being explicitly told that it is. The "news" appears even more dubious when you look at its pseudo-defiant phrasing (MINISTRY OF WAR REMAINS IN ACTION?) and explicit reference to "Hampstead School". UCS (the private school just round the back of Hampstead) are hardly going to start making press releases via Hampstead's website now are they? Besides, there are only so many schools whose buildings are marred by permanently docked oval alien spaceships in the Greater London Area.

As to the contents of this "news" story themselves, a PDF giving "Guidance for Students and Parents/Carers in Case of Snow" is included, with it a rather curious concern for student safety that seems to go amiss when they send students home for uniform violations:

As the Trash has reported, Management frankly appear unconcerned with how a student gets home when they haven't got a tie or a blazer, or when they're wearing something not quite right in the School's eyes. Coupled with a willfully used out of date picture (Hampstead no longer has a pond or a front sports cage...), an usually absent display of concern for student safety when they are dismissed at non-standard times, all in the context of a boastfully framed  non-news item (perhaps it would be more informative and less boastful were it titled "Information in Case of Snow Closure"?), it looks like we've got yet another case of the disingenuous marketing experiments Management never seems to tire of. Wake up and smell the coffee - nobody's buying what you're selling.