A British school has caused controversy after asking its Year 8 students – 13 year olds – to plan their funerals to a worrying detail.
While it is common to ask children to imagine what it would feel like to be dead, this assignment asked them needlessly specific questions.
For instance, this assignment from St. Paul’s Catholic School in Leicester asked students if they wanted to be cremated or not. Moreover, it also made students choose the flower, music and even their own coffins for their hypothetical funeral.
The assignment became public when one mother, Gemma Marston, posted the assignment on her Facebook account and asked her friends if she was the only one who felt that asking children to imagine their funeral to this specificity was may be going too far.
Many seemed to agree with her, with some saying that they would have been furious if their children were asked to finish this kind of homework. Other lamented how as important as discussing death is, a sensitive issue like this should have been consulted with the parents beforehand.
The assignment seems even more inappropriate as the UK and rest of the world continues to struggle with Covid-19. With a global pandemic claiming the lives of so many loved ones, some worried that this assignment may prove to be too much a burden for the children.
This argument was one of the most common ones found in the comment sections, indicating a wide support about the ill-timing of this assignment. One parent said that it almost seemed like a cruel joke as the kids have been forced to stay home because of the pandemic.
One teacher voiced her opinion, saying that she would not have given this kind of assignment. She says that she understands how the concept of death can be an extremely sensitive topic for some children, such as those who had recently gone through a bereavement.
After the assignment stirred great controversy in the local community and online, the school reached out to the mother and apologized for the work. The school explained that the work has given in error, although they did not specify what they meant by error.
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Replaced!