Note: Before you read on, this blog posts does not refer to your school. I visit many schools, and no similarity is intended between the schools mentioned below and any real establishments. Any similarity to a real school is coincidental. After all, who would really behave like this?
School 1
When I initially wrote this blog post I was peeved because a school had got me doing more work than I usually do, then hadn't reciprocated by letting the kids buy books. As you'll see below I vented my petty frustrations and, in the end, (spoilers) the kids bought books after all.
That school pales in comparison with the one that went on to give me trouble a few weeks later. I won't name the school - because they expressly asked me not to. In short, not only had they not given me enough time to do my classes in (less than the full two hours, never a good start), and added an extra talk on the end so they'd get value for money (they're an independent school, who often make that kind of demand) but then they had a problem with the title the kids came up with for the group comic. A title that I won't repeat here, though it was perfectly innocuous and no worse than a hundred others that have been chosen in the past.
The head of department took me aside and said we wouldn't be able to send the comic with that cover home to the parents - this was after the cover had been drawn by me, and the kids had all added their contributions to the background while I drew their caricatures - so I made a makeshift replacement cover using the drawing I'd done on the flipchart, and that was that. Problem solved, everyone happy, end of matter.
A few days later I coloured the front cover and emailed it back to the school, as usual. I even went an extra mile and made a version with an alternate title (replacing the offending word, which really wasn't offensive, with a different word) and sent them that, so there'd be a safe version to send to the parents. As is my usual practice, I then put all the comic covers in my blog, and shared them on my social media. So they wouldn't miss out, I tagged the school on Twitter.
Next day I get an email saying "It has come to our attention that you have posted the cover for our comic, which we had changed to a more generic one, on X, Facebook and BlueSky and you have tagged in our school. Please could these be taken down, as soon as possible, as we asked for this to be changed and does not reflect the comic which the children took home."
An unusual request, but I happily acquiesced. I had to do this from the car, at a motorway services, on my way home from schools in Lancashire. But I did it before the end of that night. So now, fire put out, everyone would be happy again.
The next day another email comes: "Following your email reply ... agreeing to remove any reference to (the school) from your social media / website - it has come to our attention that references to us are still live - see below." (The school attached a screen grab of my Facebook post, and my blog)
"Please can I ask for this to be removed immediately given the reasons explained to you on Monday when we met.
"As predicted, I have had a number of parental concerns which I have been addressing this week, so your understanding and quick actions, would be very much appreciated"
Wow! They certainly go the distance in scouring social media for any mention of their school. So I removed the link, edited the post to remove any mention of the school, and even blurred the offending comic cover across my socials. But this really did grind my gears. A school wanting to censor the artwork that I have produced and shared, because I produced it at their school? It does not sit well with me.
Also the mention of there being a number of "parental concerns". "As predicted". Really?
Isn't it a suspicious coincidence that the only school to have a problem with a comic cover's title, during the class (this is the first time in years, and only the third time ever), should also being the only school ever to have "parental concerns"? Concerns based on what? A comic cover they didn't even see? I have my doubts.
I would have happily put this all behind me and never thought of or mentioned the school again, but to my mixed gratitude, they've bought a record number of books. And I still had to deliver them (waiting for them to come from the printers). So I double checked all was okay with the book order and I should go ahead with signing them and bringing them in. I get a reply.
"I do need to make you aware that we have had some complaints from parents since last Friday re the content of the workshops. Because of this, we would like to first look through Richard The Third before we distribute the books to the children to take home with them today."
Bloody hell. Complaints from parents? What complaints? Want to tell me what they've said, or are you just going to keep it vague and ominous? Also it's "some complaints". So, more than one? Possibly more than two? This is something I find very concerning. Given that I have been doing these classes for about twenty years now, working with about 100 schools (or libraries, art centres, book festivals etc) every year, and doing very much the same basic class with every one, I should very much like to know what I'm doing that has caused offence, and what that offence is.
Because my fear is that I may have offended parents in these previous schools, and this is the first school where parents have been brave enough to complain. I mean it is remarkable that, of the 5000 pupils I worked with last year, and the 100,000 or so I must have worked with over the last two decades, that this is the very first time a parent has complained. And, by the most bedevilling of coincidences, not one, not two, but possibly three or more - for all I know, all 60 poor parents - have been driven to complain, directly, and immediately, to the school. To complain with such fervour that the school has felt it necessary to tell me, not once but twice, about these complaints.
I mean call me paranoid, but I'm now starting to worry whether I may have killed a child and not noticed. I know the school will, in the fullness of time, give me the full details of all these complaints, that I might hopefully address them directly. I am not in the business of upsetting parents or children and I want to put this situation right at the earliest opportunity.
Oh yes. And. They "first have to look through" my book? Luckily, before I ask any school to offer my books to parents, I send a PDF to the school. So I do know they have already seen it, or have at least had the chance to. So if they have any problems with the content now, as I fear they will, then caveat emptor, they were warned.
I have delivered the books. The school has processed the payment for my classes, but I'm still waiting to see if they've processed the payment for the books. If they don't, I don't quite know what I'll do next.
As you can imagine, this situation still has me a little tense. If they pay me for the five hundred pounds worth of books I signed and delivered to them, then we can draw a line under the day and move on. It is my prediction that they will try and negotiate, saying "x number of parents have decided they don't want your book after all" and they'll try and get money off and return signed books. Watch this space.
Update: Tues March 25th, payment comes through for all 80 books, no questions asked, no further conversation had. So that school (who I still shan't name) would have been remembered and celebrated as the school that bought the single largest amount of my Richard The Third books in one visit, and would have had my eternal gratitude, their praise sung in every successive school and wide across the internet. Now they remain forever unmentioned by name, and remembered by me as the school that dicked me about and left a very bad taste.
For light relief, here's the previous blog about a school who, by contrast, are now among my favourites.
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School 2
Original post from Feb 25th:
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