A school has changed the names of its primary one classes after complaints that they left some children feeling inferior, BBC Scotland has learned.

Bonnyrigg Primary School had called its classes 1a and 1b but some parents of children in 1b said it left the youngsters feeling second best.

 

The classes will now be known as 1ar and 1ap, incorporating teachers' surnames in the new titles.

 

One Midlothian parent dubbed the move "political correctness gone mad".

 

The man said he was surprised when he read about the change in a school newsletter.

 

He told the BBC Scotland news website: "This shows how far political correctness has gone in Scotland.

 

"I thought this policy was simply astounding. I have to admit that I am surprised that the headmistress has bowed to, and thereby endorsed, this."

 

Eleanor Coner, Scottish Parent Teacher Council information officer, said she was "flabbergasted" by the school's decision to rename its classes.

 

She said: "There is a long history of giving classes names and therefore it seems logical to go with the start of the alphabet.

 

"These parents need not be so sensitive and should think whether it is not their actions which are highlighting this inferior idea surrounding class names.

 

"It all sounds a bit silly to me and is on a par with the situation which brought us the changed nursery rhyme name of Ba Ba Rainbow Sheep.

 

"I think these parents need to get a grip, it's a ridiculous request, which has left me flabbergasted."

 

Councillor Peter Boyes, Midlothian Council cabinet member for education and lifelong learning said: "The school was approached by some parents of primary one pupils last year who expressed some concern about the use of primary '1a' and '1b' in case 'b' was perceived as being second to 'a'.

 

"This is clearly not the case in the school where the two-stream, primary one classes are allocated by date of birth.

 

"However the headteacher took the pragmatic step of renaming the classes '1ar' and '1ap', as the new class identifiers, where 'r' and 'p' are the initials of the class teacher's surname.

 

"This practice is used elsewhere in primary schools and is not unique to Bonnyrigg Primary."

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk

Absolutely ridiculous!! Yet another example of "PC gone mad"!!:angry:

mental really. although our primary school used to call us by colours!! you had little blues, big blues, oranges & greens in the infants!!

mental really. although our primary school used to call us by colours!! you had little blues' date=' big blues, oranges & greens in the infants!![/quote']

 

Well that would be a no-no as well nowadays, because the kids would think you meant "pills"!!:P

well it always used to confuse me. I never understood why i was a little blue but could never be a big blue!

 

little blues = reception, started school jan/feb

big blues = reception started school sept

oranges = Year 1

greens = Year 2

Well I had it easy, we had Year R for reception, year 1, 2,3,4,5 & 6. Well maybe it was easy because there was only 6 people in my year that left grateley primary school in jun 98 :).

 

In secondary, we got put into classes based on groups on names from history (gaunt; austin; nightingale etc) or by colour (although they dropped the colour system and moved back directly onto the tutor groups for lessons for the first 3 years, year 10&11, we got put into sets according to our sat results (so eg C1; C2; C3 & M1; M2 & M3).

 

So little scottie thinks that he is dumber than little mary who is in 1a, as oppose to 1b. Brilliant idea changing them to the teacher's name...

 

...Until the teacher leaves.

our secondary school ones were related to the teacher. so one year you'd have 1K, 1E, 1L etc, the next year you might have 1D, 1F, 1Z. (this was before we adopted the US version of numbering the school years)

 

once they merged schools they had a better idea. 6 classes per year? lets use letters from the school name so you had 10S 10A 10L 10E 10G 10R and there was the potentila for more on years you might need an extra class or two

For the tutor groups, i believe it used to be "S", "T", "O", "C" & "K", before I went there (sep 98, i think they changed it in sep 97, 'cos my brother was in O), named after the town the school was in, stockbridge. Very simple system with no bias.